Tango: A Rewrite
by Jai Rose
Summary: REWRITE OF TANGO: Daniella Fenton is a girl and a human. Daniel Phantom is a boy and a ghost. It is such a shame no one told them that, together, they shouldn't exist. Especially as one Halfa. And the world they have been forced into will change them. AU. (Also maybe be turning into a VladXDanni thing. Perhaps.)
1. It takes two to tango

_Disclaimer: If I owned Danny Phantom, you would know. Believe me. I do not._

**- WARNING - WORKING ON REWRITING THIS STORY** **- WARNING -**

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Hello! Anyone who is new, I just want to tell you that the original story is on my profile: **Tango**.

For everyone coming back from reading my story and just generally wants to know whats up:

Just thought you would like a little fair warning. I was re-reading this story because I am working on it's sequel and I just - **grrrr**.

I got pretty angry at my writing style because _I've_ changed a lot. Me and this writing just had too many fits and I** did not** like how my dialogue worked. Soooo - I decided I was going to go through and COMPLETELY REWRITE IT.

The plot will not change, but I am re-writing it for my own sake and peace of mind. :) Just so that if anyone else wants to read it or re-read it, it will actually make some kind of sense... hopefully?

At the start of every new chapter that I update I will make sure you know it had been re-written. Please bear with me for the near future of about... a week? I think I can do this in a week, bearing anything disastrous.

**Warnings**: Language, Abuse (Parental neglect), Violence, I guess kind of gender-bender?, AU

_**Summary**_: Daniella Fenton is a girl and a human. Daniel Phantom is a boy and a ghost. It is such a shame no one told them that, together, they shouldn't exist. Especially as one Halfa. And the world they have been forced into will change them.

The question is - For the better?

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**It Takes Two to Tango.**

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_:Do you think one day we'll be happy?:_ I ask.

_:We have forever.:_ He said. _:If **we** can't find happiness, then nobody shall be able to.:_

**-~DP~-**

It was after school, on a Tuesday I think.

I wouldn't know.

The days all jumble together in a never ending blur. Monday's and Friday's only separate by my thought of - "Do I wake up tomorrow at noon or seven?"

Days of the week were isolated only by importance and numbers. Easter. The fourth. Test today on the 17th. Out of food the 6th.

Today held no significance. Simply was, like so many of the 356 days of the year were. A day. Filled with the usual drivel. Breakfast, school, lunch, the occasional being bullied, back home. Today with the actual bulling.

_:He is an imbecile,:_ The voice inside my mind said.:_An __**infidel**__. He should be __bowing__ to you, not... not chasing your __**tail**__ and treating you like __**trash**__.:_

_:I know, Phantom:_ I thought, uselessly, because when the voice of Danny Phantom gets going, it goes on for a long while. It was one of his more endearing qualities.

_:No! You do not._: Phantom (he liked that name better) seethed. _:He runs around town as if he is the __**alpha dog**__ and that is __**unacceptable**__.:_

"Phantom." I said, rubbing a hand against my face with an exhausted twinge. "It happens."

:_It should not._:

_:I know.:_

He saw that my usual weak points were not such today and went for another tactic, one he liked every much.

_:We have the powers to make him pay for his-:_

"I **said** no, Phantom."

The presence faded somewhat and I immediately felt sorry for snapping. He was just angry on my behalf. It wasn't like he was joining in on the taunting that I had endured for most of my teenage girl existence.

"Phantom," I called softly, into thin air. No answer. "It's no big deal. Humans, Phantom. It's just what they do. Mostly the guy population, sure but – you should know _this_."

:_Just because I was a guy once does not mean I understand __**neanderthal**__._:He retorted with a sniff, and I had the mental image of him, decked out in his dark, dark black suit and his ghost white hair pointing his nose clear into the air and sniffing daintily. He had the cheekbones to pull it off.

He had a _grin_ to his voice as he retorted, :_I saw that.:_

I managed a small smile as I lay on the bed, staring up at the ceiling pattered with glow-in-the-dark stars and moons. Towards the sky that was being blocked by the human invention to keep the rain at bay.

:_Danni_,: My name, spoken with such care that it should be impossible for a **ghost**, let alone Phantom to make it sound so sincere. _:This __**should not **__be normal. You are not merely a human anymore.: _

_:Oh yes, wise Phantom?:_ I chuckled sardonically, we'd had this conversation a few times. Never like this though. :_Just because you and I share noggin space and have agreed to get along for the indefinite future - doesn't mean I am any less human than I was.:_

Phantom scoffed.

_:You have me. I bow to no one, except you. No human can boast that.: _

Something warmed in my closed off heart, like it was known to do when Phantom said such things.

_:So I will not __**allow**__ you that cursed title.:_

He was so protective, it hadn't taken me long to figure out what his 'ghost obsession' as my parents liked it call it, was. Anything he considered _his_ was good enough to be kept under lock and key, hugged and polished, kept safe. Coo'd at on occasion, too. Which had clued me in, when Phantom and I had first been tossed together, into understanding he meant me no harm.

He also was prone to running away, but that was a protective measure in and of itself. If you didn't have the strength to protect it, then you ran with it. Simple logic. Even if the first few times he high-jacked my body and flew the scene faster than a speeding bullet.

Phantom knew of danger intimately. Mostly because the Ghost Zone, the home world of the ghosts, was a dangerous place. For those Marked, slightly safer. Since Phantom had managed to stay unMarked his entire existence – there was no one better than him to run away with.

I was glad, as a Halfa, we were exempt from the rules of Marking.

It was a brutish business I would rather not think of. Which made two unthinkable subjects. The accident and the Ghost King's Mark.

_:Thank you,:_ I said, instead of just allowing the moment to pass, like I could have. I opened back up the connection we both had and allowed the sensory detail to come back. His thoughts and his mind opened up to me just like mine did in turn.

I breathed a sigh of relief that I had been holding in since I had shut Phantom out almost six hours ago. Phantom echoed the sentiment by snuggling up deeper inside out conjoined mind space. Meeting me in the middle. Contentment, joy, and just plain Phantom all came rushing to greet me. Like a puppy.

He now felt just what I felt. And Vice Versa.

As scary as that was.

Having someone in your most intimate thoughts had been trying at first, but we had gotten better at it. We thought. Occasionally we snapped at each other and had our share of fits and fights, but those times were getting fewer and fewer in between. It was hard to stay angry at someone who knew exactly **which** buttons had been pressed and **exactly** how to apologize. The most I could manage now-a-days was denial.

Which was amusing to us both because even though we shared our minds so openly, two separate people stuck together forever, we still were only allowed one body at a time. Mine or Phantom's. Ghost or human. Heart beat or a being of cold, cold ecto-energy.

Thinking about our situation, and feeling much more calm and collected than a few moments ago, I looked at my hands. The femininity of them surprised me occasionally. When I basked so long in Phantom's mind that I forgot, however momentarily, that I wasn't in fact a guy.

We were complete opposites, too.

I was a young woman. Phantom was an old ghost with the body of a young man. I was aged fifteen, but felt so much older with Phantom's knowledge of the last century from his point of view in my head. He was very much an old man, but with my combined youth, didn't show it nearly as much. We'd been working on his slang and speech over the past few weeks. He still sounded like a man from the turn of the century, but was better at hiding it.

I was prone to bouts of complete attention deficit, able to be completely off track in a matter of minutes. He was collected and aware of everything at every moment of the day. With an almost photo-graphic memory.

We were night and day, and really, that helped us get along more than the actual being stuck together part.

But really, how did this all work? My mind always came back to this. Ever since the... _accident_. The one neither of us mentioned.

He was a ghost, and I was a girl – really did I not make it any more obvious than that?

Our relationship we had decided to develop was one of complete cohabitation. At first, I had wanted – and did – call it parasitic. Phantom was the one in my head, after all. As time moved forward, I realized it was more of a symbiotic relationship. Give and take. We could use each others bodies, and it all depended upon who was the 'driver' at that time. I was more inclined to my own body, as he was with his own, but I had no qualms of actually being Phantom. He didn't much liking being a human, so there was that.

Really the only way I could describe it was that we had a closet of exactly two suits to wear, and with it came a personality for each. You couldn't wear both at the same time, so you had to settle for one or the other.

And that change, between bodies, happened within an eye blink. Phantom to me and back.

There was a crash downstairs and I shuttered my eyes. "Damn it."

My parents were out of the lab.

Hopefully they would stay in the kitchen, merely for food. Hunger keeping them away from their precious experiments.

_:Do you think they just woke up one morning and decided to be complete ass-hats?:_ Phantom asked, pulling himself out of the warm cocoon of our minds and using the 'slang' I had taught him. He was very proud of himself when he did that.

"I think not," I said. "But I **could** be wrong."

_:An act, perhaps?_:

"Let's not go that far, Phantom, buddy old' pal." I snorted.

"They ain't that smart."

_:It can not be possible to be that vapid and stunned in mental-growth without some kind of... I don't know, help, right?:_

Phantom did have a point, even if I didn't know what vapid meant. He was still teaching me, too. Just like I was teaching him new 'words'.

"You've been dead and off the human plane for a long time, Phantom," I answered, without actually answering. "You've seen how much things have changed."

He hummed in his mental throat – making an awkward but interesting sound of understanding.

I heard the stairs creak and stiffened against the bedspread of rocket-ships. They wouldn't come upstairs, would they?

_They never came upstairs._

I bolted upright as I waited and listened with baited breath.

Feeling sick to my stomach at the thought of them stepping foot into my room with me still inside it.

There were muffled voices, which meant they were yelling excitedly. Talking loudly. My heart got caught up in my throat and my eyes glanced towards the old oak outside the window. I could make it, if I jumped. I'd done it before. But the window would be open...

I heard the stairs creak again, more excited babbling.

My stomach churned like I had eaten bad fish.

_:They must've created a new invention.:_

Phantom said it like it was no big deal, while his thoughts tossed and turned like the sea. His emotions fell flat and snarled like an angry polar bear. Same as mine. Except I also was terrified. In the way a cornered mouse was.

The whole city of Amity Park thought my parents were crazy but good people. Insane for them, instead of against them. Helpful. Weird, but harmless. With the ghost 'problem' we had, it wasn't a surprise the inventions they created and patented were so useful.

Which was why I hated them.

Even before Phantom had shown up in my life. A different reason for it, before he had gotten his ghostly paws on my mind – sure – but at least it wasn't a far jump from that.

The inventions my parents created were... horrible things.

They were things that looked harmless and everyday. They were cute and slapped with the tag of "Fenton". Al-a-mode as the city liked to say, behind closed doors. And the people, including my parents, who used the stupid horrible devices to trap, capture, or otherwise hurt ghosts – didn't understand that they _were not harmless._

The Fenton Thermos, a device meant to capture ghosts until a time where they could be transported from soup-container to the ghost-portal was anything but nice. And it did not do it's function, correctly. In fact, it was the most fucked up mismarketing in the world. Because no ghost survived, **mentally**, any kind of time inside the contraption. Nor did they ever really leave it.

It was a one time deal. A one time death machine.

We, Phantom and I, felt it, too. When we were in close proximity to those that had been touched by the device, or the devices themselves. We felt the death-pangs. We felt the screams.

It grated against our very **souls**.

And there was such an easy fix to the pain caused. So easy it was laughable and so out of reach I had been sicked by the very thought of how in reach it was – but how no one would be able to touch it.

The solution? An apology.

There was a reason why Mediums and the like were so very much loved. They could see the hurt and they could heal it. For ghosts, intention was everything. They just needed one person to apologize to them, personally.

Which was why I was not able to just apologize for the entirety for the human race and be done with it.

I was a Halfa, now. Half-human and half-ghost. Ghosts didn't believe my sincerity. Humans just plain didn't listen – mostly because I did not tell them, I wasn't stupid. And no matter how much they both bitch about it - Ghosts and Humans were very much linked. You couldn't have one without the other.

Ghosts came from humans. Humans fed off the energy they gave off – subtly of course. The circle of life included us. All of us.

That was that.

The fact the nobody was listening and the medium population increasingly being called 'nut-jobs' and run out of town, meant that eventually the fallout could be catastrophic. With my parents inventions being created and handed out to the average day citizen like candy, and with the ghosts actually becoming enraged with the blatant fear-mongering – it wouldn't be long until something happened. Something snapped. Or someone.

Namely Pariah Dark. King of the Ghosts.

"They're coming up." I whispered as I heard the stairs creak even more, the steps they were taking coming faster even as they babbled. The words becoming clearer, but still incoherent.

Phantom wasted no time in egging me towards flight. Towards his form, to give over the reigns.

_:Let's go.:_ He pleaded. My parents scared him more than he let on, even if he knew he could run much faster than they could chase.

"Way ahead of you."

And I was. Backpack was over by the door but I walked fast enough that my parents thundering up the stairs only managed three steps before I grabbed it and slung it over my shoulder with practiced ease from years of fast-paced running away.

"Danni!" My father, Jack.

"Ella!" Maddie.

I hurried faster, grabbing my cellphone and tossing it into the bag before getting the straps over my shoulders.

:_Hurry_.: Danny pushed. Way uncomfortable with my parents and all they were. Just like me.

"Oh sweetie! We've done it!"

"A cage!"

"You should see those despicable ghosts splat!"

"Despicable!"

I allowed the chilling transformation from me to Phantom come over me like a warm hug. I pushed the thought of what **exactly** they must have created to get Jack so excited he was merely repeating my mother. The echo of the ghost they had hurt was now swamping the house and I had to gasp to get any kind of air going – even thought Phantom's body didn't need to breath.

There was a little known fact – little known because it was solely **myself** and **Phantom** who felt the affects and did_n't have anyone to talk to about it_ – that when ghosts are in pain they scream at such a high frequency that human **can not** hear it.

Other ghosts can, of course, but it is not a physically disabling thing. An annoyance.

Halfa's, or rather, just Phantom and I – hear it like a banshee squealing. Enough so that at close range – I've been known to lose consciousness.

Thank goodness the echo of the ghost was a little older than a few minutes – or else I might have succumbed to the pure fear-hate-scream that was currently bouncing around my house like a ping-pong ball.

My door crashed open, bashing the wall behind it.

"Danni! Oh, where could she be?"

I blinked as I looked at my parents, who had entered my room. They were looking around bewildered, straight through me.

_Thank God. _I sighed in relief. Phantom had turned us invisible. His quick thinking while my muddled mind had turned sour.

_:You rock.:_

He preened.

_:I know.:_

"I was sure I heard her..." Jack said, scratching his balding head and rubbing his enormous belly.

Maddie shrugged, noncommittally. "Must have been our imaginations... did she say she was going out?"

"Not that I know of."

"Then again, she doesn't tell us much anymore."

I never told them anything, at any time in my life. It wasn't a recent development.

_:Was this worry?_: I thought sardonically as they both stood in my room and pouted at each other. Some kind of slim device in Maddie's palm.

The mental exhaustion of disbelief as they actually **tried** to care for me, for once, blew through me like a puff of noxious gas.

They continued to call out for me. Stunning me into stillness. The repetition is nothing like I've ever heard. Never before had my name been said so many times in a minute. It was music to my ears. The kind that starts out soft and sweet and then slowly dribbles down the drain as you realize the lyrics are all about pain and hurting and unhappiness.

_:We should go.:_ Phantom said. Urging me to move away.

_:Just a second longer._:

It's a plead that comes out instead of simple words.

The chant of sentences staring my name wash over me, before finally the door shuts and the chorus is drowned in silence.

And to think, it only took my parents fourteen years to notice their youngest daughter is missing from their lives.

_:I'm taking control.:_

It was a warning. One that I had demanded Phantom make whenever he wanted control of our body. The same one I was to make, when the situation was reversed. I allowed him the body without much protest, becoming a simple mind in the back of his own, as limbs moved of their own accord.

_:Let's fly.:_ I requested as Phantom lifted off the ground and hovered.

_:It would be my pleasure.: _He said.

And truly, it was.

We smiled, both of us at the same time, taking control at the same moment to lift the sides of mouth upwards. Even though I was fifteen, I'd never been kissed – but this was how I imagined it to feel.

Not that Phantom and I had any kind of inclination towards the voice in our own heads. But, the feeling of someone else against your own lips was... _unique_. It was shared in a way that most of my life had not been.

Narcissistic too, because I enjoyed it too much for it to be normal.

We were in the air the next second I started paying attention. Weightless. Gravity touching everything around us but leaving us be. Our hair whipped back and forth, and when it reached close to our eyes I saw the pure white had a touch of translucency to it. Signaling that we were invisible. We could see ourselves when invisible – no one else could though.

_It was a nice perk,_ I thought.

No words needed to be exchanged. Phantom was as enamored with flying as a fish was in love with the water. I followed along like a piece of drift wood caught in a new world, soon to be part of the ocean. Phantom drifted like he knew everything about the wind and I clung on hoping one day to be as all knowing as him – already picking up on a few tricks of the trade.

_:Park?:_ I said, amazed that my voice inside our head was not swept away with the wind.

:_Sounds... pleasant.:_

Phantom talk for _"Must we?"._

_:I need to think, Phantom.:_

_:..All right.:_

Phantom never liked the park. For a few reasons. The first being that he had died in one.

The fact that the park Phantom had died in was all the way in London, bulldozed over for an office building, had no weight on his feelings of the matter. The fact that his murder, a mugger who had been trying to steal from a pretty little lady that had dark hair, blue eyes, and fair skin, was dead - also had no hold on my partner-in-mind. The fact that that to-be-mugged-woman had allowed Phantom, when he had been naught but a scrawny boy, to lay in her lap as he died from a gunshot wound in her protection – had a little more hold on the situation. The only reason he even allowed the body to be driven anywhere near a park.

He still felt stifled and trapped at parks. All parks. Amusement. Forest. The word was the reminder.

_:Thank you.:_ I said, sincerely.

He did not respond, simply continued flying, receiving his fix for the day. The wind embracing him in a way I hoped, perhaps, one day I would be able to.

As we continued at a pace that dazzled planes, Phantom reminds me of his obsession: Protection. It makes me want to groan, but I snuggle in deeper as I allow Phantom his mental rant. He is taking me to the park, after all, he deserves it.

_:We really should leave, Danni,_: He said, mimicking himself from days past. :_Your parents are a danger to not only _themselves_ and ghosts but __**us**__._:

_:I agree,:_ I said, also mimicking myself from days ago. :_But I'm still only fifteen, Phantom._:

The "_Where would I go_?" unspoken, because Phantom doesn't quite get 'homes'. He liked the freedom of not having a place to return to.

_:Age is just a number.: _He boasted.

I sigh_. :It is, but one that decides who the police hunt down if I go missing.:_

_:We'd leave a note. I'm not completely unreasonable.:_

_:And Sam and Tucker?:_

_:They are not in danger. Not like you or I.:_

He has answers for every one of my questions. Like usual. Answers that speak to the part of my brain that touches his own on a regular basis – the part that picks up on his own obsession and is slowly integrating it into my own mind: Protect. Above all costs. **We must survive.**

_:Not yet, Phantom.:_ I said. Pushing my very mind into the present and only the present. _:Please... Just a little while longer.:_

_:It's been three weeks,: _Phantom responded. The truth is that it has been a month, but Phantom and I had taken a full week to simply accept the situation._ :How much time do you need?:_

_:I don't know, Phantom,:_

And I don't. Heartbreak and tearing yourself from all you know is hard.

We land in the park with silence blanketing us, like the snow that wouldn't be present for another four months. Phantom has backed off from my rather rational fear of leaving the city, and guided us over to a bench that overlooks the playground I grew up on. We allowed myself to come through, changing from Phantom to Danni, and sat on the bench.

I think over why I should stay and the numerous reasons flood me. If I turn the issue over, I know the oppositions has its reasons too. My mind supplies that I should stay because this is my home. Sam and Tucker are here. This is all I have ever known. School is here. I am only a child, in the grand scheme of things. The world outside this city is vast and huge and I am frightened of it, if I admit that tomyself.

Phantom supplied, faster than my mind could quite snarl at – _it's dangerous here. Your parents are awful horrible people. The city will be the death of us, if we do not get moving._

All valid points.

I look over the playground and remind myself of the memories of this place. Another reason I came here.

When I had been five, I had hid out at the playground for a week. Coming home for snacks and food, only. I slept in the park during that time, just to say I could. My underlying motive was hoping my parents would notice my disappearance. Instead of Jazz with her disapproving two-years-older-than-you glances.

I steeled my heart, because I couldn't have it breaking, and remembered that it had been **I **who had come back and started sleeping in my own bed – not my parents forcing me back. It had also been I, in the later years when my parents had become more and more forgetful, that smiled brightly at a stressed Jazz and fixed breakfast and dinner. Lunch was provided at school.

It had been me making up excuses for my parents about why they never had time for me. Except the usual disappointed glances when I received my report card, in hopes that perhaps getting bad grades would get them to at least raise their voices towards me. All I received for my failure was a lecture, spoken in even tones, about how I was to get better grades. Which I grudgingly did, only to be received with silence by my parents who thought C's were not that impressive.

Trying to get my mind off the more depressing aspects of my life I searched for a part of the playground that didn't have some kind of negative hold on my life. My eyes fell on the sandbox and I felt my mouth twitch.

Sam and Tuck.

When I had been seven, Sam Manson and Tucker Foley had greeted me for the first time in that glorified litter box. I had seen them at school, but we had never been in the same class so we did not know each other well.

It was a day where as my parents worked relentlessly downstairs in the basement and Jazz refused to play with me; I had wondered off, alone. I had seen the two children playing in the sandbox and had wanted so very badly to know them – to have a friend. Their smiles to each other were childlike and I had been immediately jealous.

Then Sam had looked up and asked with a smile if I had wanted to come and join them building a defense against the 'dark one', it hadn't be hard to sit and throw sand for the next four hours. Grinning even as they were taken away by their mothers who both asked if I needed a ride home.

Such kindness really was so foreign that I had told them point blank I could walk. In the years that followed, they understood along with the fathers, that I was perhaps the most independent child in the city.

This was my only defense against running away. Against Phantom, I realized after the past month of fighting with him.

_:This is a dead place.:_ Phantom said.

_:It's all I have.:_ I replied.

_:A month more.: _Phantom said.

_:If there is nothing new in a month?:_

_:We leave.:_

I sat there, shaking as I realized just what I was agreeing too.

_:A month,: _I agreed. _:But if we find even a small something... another month.:_

_:In the grand scheme of things, Danni, two months is hardly anything.:_

This was his way of agreeing to my terms.

So we sat and watched the Amity Park park, trying to listen to the subtle nuances of the city. The city that was groaning with the weight of the world, in such a similar way to ourselves that I had to get up to feel it more fully against my skin.

The city feels sad. Streetlights were not as bright as they could have been, nor did they cover much of the park. The city sat very still. Rough and spindly like a plant trying to reach towards a light being blocked off by a much bigger oak tree. And it is a suffocating kind of feeling, that steals the air from my lungs as the ivy of the city tries to eat us alive.

The emotion of the city, if I could give it just one, would be depressed. From both humans and ghosts. The humans make themselves sad, but the ghosts – the screams that echo weakly – they are simply not strong enough to support themselves in an environment where the humans didn't care enough to fear, or hate, or... love.

The hot summer made everything a little worse, too. Somehow. Words couldn't express how.

And I realize, so many of those tonight, that I'm not just staying for me. I'm saying no to Phantom because this is the first time in as long as I can remember that there was a choice. A choice that I could choose wrong and only have myself to blame. Without it being life-or-death.

_:Do you think one day we'll be happy?:_ I ask.

_:We have forever.:_ He said. _:If **we** can't find happiness, then nobody shall be able to.:_

_:What if I don't deserve it?:_ I asked, knowing that I had come from a broken house hold. People that came from those usually ended up right back in them.

Phantom didn't think so. _:If anyone deserves a chance at some kind of ever-after, Danni, it's you.:_

We shall not run tonight. That much is clear.

Tomorrow? No.

Two months from now? Perhaps.

But two months, when we had already survived one, didn't seem so long to wait.

The air was becoming more than suffocating and was now stilling. I grew claustrophobic in the large area as I stared at the doorway to the beautiful sky above me.

_:Can you dance, Phantom?:_ I asked, already up and off the bench from trying to feel the city. Drink in the pain and misery into my own.

_:I'm sure I could. It's been a long time since I have, though.:_

_:Try and dance we me then.: _I challenged, setting up a pace to a tuneless song in my head.

Images of his life, before death, flashed behind my closed eyelids and he taught me – slowly but surely – how to dance his way.

There was no other person in front of me, but Phantom was using my limbs just as I was. We were not in sync, but we were of the same mind enough that where our feet ended up was somewhat coordinated. It started as a two-step, but I added in a twirl, and Phantom took control of the reigns to teach me a circle of motions. Soon, I was following along with him – limbs and all.

There was a flurry of activity from my feet that I could smell the dust rising. It was not fast though, it was even paced, but it was more than the ground had seen all night. I turned in circles, carefully avoiding all obstacles around me as I pretended that Phantom was in front of me, showing me his unique style of movement.

_:It's called the Tango.: _Phantom whispered as he led my feet in a new direction.

_:Oh?: _I said right back, breathless from the dance that had to have been going on for at least a few minutes.

_:You need two for it.:_

It seemed silly he would bring that up.

_:I've got you.:_

Phantom's emotions warmed against me. Pulled me in as he gave me what we affectionately called a 'mind-melt'. A kind of hug, but full soul. We turned from two in one to something a little weirder, one on one.

It takes two to tango, and so we did.

And we danced until I forgot that we would have a bittersweet future.

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So, what did you think?

If anyone is a re-reader I would very much like your opinion on it.

Actually. Just any opinion really. :)


	2. Consider it Unexpected

I have no reason for this to be as late as it has been. I know I said that I would have this re-written in a week, and I almost did, but then crap-hit-the-fan and well... I just kind of stalled on it for a while. So if there are a few inconsistencies, just know they will be cleared up - hopefully soon.

I think I did quite well with this re-write though, I hope you all think so as well.

Same warnings as first chapter still apply.

I do not own anything except a few of the words, probably.

ENJOY!

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**Consider it Unexpected**

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_"Now, Daniella," Vlad said, "Would you mind if I came in?"_

_I was petrified of saying yes or no._

**_-~DP~-_**

78.

That is the number of how many days had passed since Phantom and I had landed in that park, decided upon our next move, and danced. Two months, two weeks, and five days. At least, that was what I calculated it at.

I'd been sharing my soul, body, and mind with Phantom for a little over three months. By a little over, I of course meant that it was almost four. In the next few days it certainly would be.

Many things had happened in this time.

Tucker had finally gotten up the courage, after I had pushed him enough, to ask Sam on a date. His meat-loving ways and her vegan-attitude, somehow worked. They'd kissed the day after, right in front of me. The cute pussy-footing around had been adorable for the first week, and then the making out had started. I had never been so put-off and jealous at the same time in all of my life.

Phantom had just smugly said, :_Just deserts.:_

Which was _deserved_, of course, because it had been me who had pushed them together. And I wouldn't have changed it for the world. The two of them... they were **comfortable** together. In a way I had never known with another, physical, person. Cuddled together with their polar-opposite ways but completely respect each other. In this instant, perhaps, just perhaps, two wrongs did make a right.

The completely opposite of me and all my problems.

While my two best friends were in la la-land, I was in purgatory.

The week after the whole park deal, I started following Phantom's awkward and against the grain advice that he had been offering up for the past month. Which was plainly – Rebel. _Be you, instead of what you think your parents want from you. _He had said.

I wasn't sure how to.

My whole life I had lived with one simple thing in mind: Get the attention of my parents. And I had tried it the goody-two-shoes way. Change my behavior only in the way that would get their attention. In a positive way, at least. Since it had failed so often, I had just kind given up hope and accepted they must have hated me or something.

But, disobeying orders, shirking chores and food schedules, along with skipping school and suddenly I was all they talked about. _Danni didn't do this. Did Danni do this? Where on earth is Danni?_ Their theories, because I wasn't talking to them about it, was that I had found some kind of boy outside the house who was a bad influence on me.

As amusing as that was, the boy had actually come from **_inside_ **the house, inside the portal to be exact. And was now _inside_ my head.

I took their stupidity and ran with it, though. Not ever day something like that happened. Making Phantom's sudo identity named Daniel Forman. Whom I would spend hours outside the house, on rooftops or in trees or even around school, simply talking. And, the longer I was gone from the house, the more pissed my parents would be when I returned.

_Why hadn't I done that earlier? _It would have saved me a lot of trouble. Fake boyfriend and all.

Maddie and Jack both had pulled me aside at least two different times per week to try and get me to 'open' up about my problems. And then they would both sit me down on Sunday and try and crack me. They still barely saw or talked to me, but now when they did see me, instead of running their mouths about their inventions they tried to _talk to me_. Grill me for all I was worth.

While they waited to interrogate me - Phantom and I were out dissecting the world and my own frustrations. If it hadn't been for Phantom, I probably would never have realized just how cynical of a side I could show.

Phantom liked to claim it was because I could finally 'breath' but well… I just liked to think I put my sassy-pants on.

All while my parents raged on why I wasn't home.

The little pit in my stomach had warmed over the first few times that had actually directed their attention towards me. Warmed over like a pot of boiling oil.

Too fucking bad it was too little, too late.

Since a month gone, too.

Since Jack had **dared** to raise an ecto-weapon against me, while I was still in the form of his daughter. When I had been too shocked and hurt to do anything but stare at him with wide eyes as he brushed off the pain I was feeling as – impossible. Telling me to tough it out. The gun wasn't meant to hurt humans, therefore it didn't. I was being a baby.

My blood boiled as I thought over the past and tried to force myself to the now.

Jack was the reason we were now, for sure, running away, after all. Something Phantom was excited about, but was also incredibly put off with because we were not doing that at this very second.

We were roped into something much worse.

_:I still can't believe we are doing this.:_ Phantom said, more than aware that I was struggling to hold back my anger at the dinner table.

_:Let it go, Phantom. We've lasted almost two weeks already.:_

_:Why did I agree to this... this madness?:_

_:Because then we can plead torture if we are ever caught after we run?:_

_:Hardy, har, har.:_ He said dryly.

I smiled into my palm that was fisted against my face. Trying not to call attention to myself at the table I was currently seated at with one of the most wealthy people in the world. And my family. One the most wealthy people, who made my best friend Sam Manson's family look like they were still begging for table-scraps - and we were at his house. A mansion no less, that may actually take up the same amount of space as the state of Maine.

The host was sitting at the head of the table, with Jack to his right and Maddie to his left. Jazz was sitting next to me, smiling politely at the conversations of the adults when she wasn't reading. It was cute look my sister had on her face whenever she showed it, a few parts intellect but almost too many parts curious as well and I had to stifle a proud albeit small smile.

My parents were another matter entirely. The host, too. All of them chatting while I tried to get a good look at the billionaire without arising the suspicion of my parents.

Vlad Masters. **Vladdie**, as my father had called him. A cheese-head. A man in the two percent of the world who owned a multimillion dollar corporations and ran it with all the power of a dictator. The man who had an almost British accent that came more from his wealth than any actual country of origin. Former-college-friends with my parents. Best friends.

_Who would have thought? _Even though my parents had never once mentioned they had known Mr. Masters, it was clear that they did. By the way that Masters was looking at my mother, I would say _intimately_. Which had a squich-factor of at _least_ eleven, but I could forgive because they hadn't seen each other in years... Perhaps she had changed enough that Mr. Masters wouldn't see anything worth while in her?

_:The way he's drooling,: _Phantom said, disgust seeping through._ :I think not.:_

_:A girl could dream.:_

My parents knew people with money mostly because they **had** money. Usually my parents 'friends' (who had money) were complete ass-holes, hoity-toity and all that because they had the money to fund my parents crazy experiments- that weren't quite so crazy anymore. I had first assumed the same of Masters, until my father had foolishly exclaimed: "VLADDIE!"

I couldn't tell if the shudder was from the break-spine hug or the nick-name.

:_Watch._: Phantom whispered, interrupting the reminiscing of the ball-room greeting my Father had given that might have also cracked one of Masters ribs. _:Between the oaf and Mr. Masters.:_

Following Phantom's instructions I zoned into Jack and Master's interactions. And was promptly puzzled as Jack laughed boisterously, and Mr. Masters only gave him a tight smile in return. Maddie fakely laughing along, with stress lines around her brow. Narrowing my eyes I watched further and was further amused to see Masters only barely restrained himself from smacking Jack's hands as they patted his shoulder.

_:They are supposed to be friends.:_

_:Perhaps not as friendly as we thought, Danni.:_

Watching closely, I could confirm that he was right. Vlad outright glared, before remembering himself and biting out a bitter smile.

_:Oh dear, he __**really**_ _dislikes him._:

Phantom laughed.

I didn't see anything out of the ordinary, though. just general dislike. :_What do you mean?_:

_:Come along, Danni, use what I taught you,: _He said, instead of helping me. _:Watch their **actions**. Not their words.:_

So I did. I watched the little things. Masters's clenching fist. The way his eyebrow twitched along with his eye when Jack said something exceedingly stupid and ignorant. The heavy breathing as he glared when no one was looking at my father but smiled dotingly at my mother. The tight smile that came about when my parents did something gross and lovey-dovey.

I felt my spoon drop as I interpreted all the signs just as Phantom had taught me.

Vlad Masters was no friend of Jack.

I didn't know what else he could be at the moment, but it was clear the feelings that were there did not wish the man of my household a good tomorrow. Nor a good year.

Everyone's conversations stopped as my cutlery fell on to my plate with a patter-clatter. Everyone also turned to look at me, necks snapping in some cases, as if I had called their attention with a cow-bell or a knife to the cups to signal my want of silence.

I had only a second to react correctly. Getting into my newest state of mind, that seemed to piss my family off like no-other, I smirked.

"Oops."

:_You're awful, Danni._: Phantom snorted, watching the procession with something akin to blood lust. Just wanting someone to throw the first punch.

As he had all week.

"Did you need something, Daniella?" Mr. Masters asked.

_:Manners,: _Phantom warned me before I could follow along my own and his trains of thought. :_He dislikes your father, remember? That makes him a... friend.:_

Enemy of my enemy and all that.

Grudgingly, I gave him my respect. Phantom knew more about word play then I did, after all.

"No, sir. Simple slip of the hand." I threw in a dazzling smile to sweeten the pot.

Maddie and Jack both jumped my skin together as one. "Danni!" and "Ella!" rang clearly. Loudly.

"Yes?" I asked, wincing at the volume of their voices.

"Why on earth did you do that?" Both parents yelled.

"I heard the first time." I said, rubbing my ears in mock pain from the din. "It was an accident."

"Don't give me that young lady," Jack said, his eyes wide and huge as he glanced between everyone at the table. "You've been nothing but sour this entire trip!"

"Considering I've dropped a spoon and you think I've started the apocalypse?" I replied. "I might be a tad sour. So sue me."

Maddie's forehead vein bulged and Jack gaped. Both of them angry that I would dare do this to _them_ at the dinner table of their oh-so-important friend.

As if I hadn't done this before.

After almost two weeks on the road, a family-imposed torture, it was a surprise nobody had murdered anyone. Specifically me and my parents. Jazz simply sat out of all our spats and read her book or studied us. Never talking until all the 'bad' words were spat out and soot on the wind. Or she would snap at me if I asked a question while she was in the middle of a good paragraph (mostly because she was driven just as insane as I was from the stupid ghostly-camp-fire songs). She always apologized after, but I was petty and refused to talk to her half the time.

Maddie and Jack had started this road-trip with the hope that I would learn how to live in the 'real' world, after all. Jazz was just dragged along for the hell of it. Their mad-minds ready to torture us both through our imposes family-time.

The only thing I had **learned** from this torturous road-trip was that Beavers could climb trees if a giant RV was coming at them at over fifty miles an hour.

Also, that I was very lucky I hadn't half-died a second time.

Jack was a horrid driver.

But he had been paying a lot of attention to Jazz and I, which left a pleasant little pit in my stomach that I stomped on with Phantom's help. I didn't need some kind of pity forming for the half-wit.

I caught Masters as I tuned out my mother's rage. She was going quite strong. He was looking thoughtful as he glanced me over. I caught him at the end of it. There was nothing malicious about it, I could tell he was just curious about me. Daughter to the great and powerful Fentons who was neither smart nor a looker. I wondered what he was thinking. His eyebrows were quirked but his mouth was pursed. A thoughtful look to his face the entire time.

"You're not even listening, are you Daniella?" Maddie steamed.

"Haven't been for a while." I said, honestly.

That caught my parents off guard, which I reveled in momentarily.

"Then you can go to your room and thing about your attitude young lady!"

We caught eyes as I was sent away from the table by my irate mother, and I smirked at Mr. Masters.

I didn't believe it when he returned it.

* * *

There was a final crack as the door shut.

The door to the large dinning room closed behind me as a maid pointed me in the direction of where I had placed my suitcase. The giant room that had been painted cream, lavender, and orange - somehow making it still look grand and amazing. With a king size bed that I was dying for right about now.

_:Why do I get the feeling we've entered into a new game?:_ Phantom asked.

_:I don't know,:_ I said exhausted, as I started the long trek to the wing where the rooms were. _:I didn't expect that...:_

_:He's like a tiger in sheep's clothing.:_

_:Yeah right, if anyone's the tiger in sheep's clothing,:_ I said decisively, :_It would be __**us**__.:_

_:Of course. You are right, as always, Danni,: _Phantom said. _:But this is different.:_

_:He's a human: _The thought of any human being dangerous to us was laughable. I dismissed him as just that. Phantom was not going to let me do that.

_:And are you not just as dangerous as him?:_

I stopped just outside the door that was to be my room for the last few days of our journey before we returned home.

_:What do you mean?:_ I asked, shivering at the amount of spectral energy in this house.

It was a wonder Masters hadn't had had it fumigated. Or whatever it is that humans did to get rid of low-level spirits... Which was weird, because that meant there was a higher-powered ghost around.

But I had not felt anything over a level three. Phantom hadn't given any indication of a higher powered ghost around either. Then again, we were kind of a kill-joy in that department and few Ghosts even **_tried_ **to come near us with our power level seeping through our pores.

_:I'm not ignorant, anymore,:_ Phantom said. _:I've been watching humanity and it is clear that humans are dangerous in their own ways. To other humans at least.:_

I opened the door and turned on the light. _:Explain.:_

_:Danni, Mr. Masters has a lot of money. From what I know - just hearing things about him throughout the grapevine, he is also a __**powerful**_ _man.: _Phantom explained as I sat on the edge of the enormous bed, settling down for a long rant and after-discussion. _:People fear him enough to call him powerful. And so, to other humans, he is powerful.:_

_:Your word play is too much sometimes, Phantom.:_ I said. I was still just a kid really, street-smart now more than ever but still pretty dense. _:But I get it. He's powerful because he has money and others believe he can use that to their gain?:_

_:You're listening better.:_ Phantom praised. _:What else did you observe of him?:_

_:Must we do this now?:_ I groaned, not in the mood for twenty questions.

Phantom didn't answer, but I got the distinct impression he was unimpressed with me.

_:Fine, fine.:_ I said, rubbing my eyes.

I recalled Masters eyes :_Anger.:_

_:Very old anger.: _Phantom confirmed.

I tried to think of more, but I hadn't gotten much more than a look in. Phantom would have had more time to concentrate. I had been busy at the time we had crossed stares.

_:I didn't get that good of a look at them.:_

_:Understandable, but I **did**, Danni.:_

I smiled. A perk of having two minds in one body. One of the few perks.

_:Can I see it?:_

_:You may.:_

Phantom allowed me to see the memory through himself. How he had interpreted the eye contact and what he had gotten out of it.

I was... a bit shocked.

Ok. No. That's not the right way to put it. My brain was now kind of spluttering in the aftermath, failing at putting itself back together. The _second_ of eye contact that I had held was nothing compared to what Phantom had managed in the same time limit.

Masters eyes were so **deep** and **vast**. It made me shiver. The insurmountable amounts of pain, bitterness so cold, betrayal so **deep**, and love so forgotten by everyone and anyone else... the same part that was in my _own eyes_ when I looked in the mirror instead of just relying on Phantom to back me.

Loneliness. Wanting. The wanting to belong. An orphans wanting, or a family revoked kind of thing. A lonely wanting. A longing so deep that even if I starred for hours, I would never reach the bottom of it.

And it was mirrored in my eyes.

The longing was in both of us. Something deep and something profound. It made the pit in my stomach form in favor of running and protecting myself – rather than sit and try and muddle through what on earth anything **his** eyes were telling me, screaming at me.

"What the hell." I said, with my fingers clenched in the bed spread. Tightened like a noose in the poor fabric.

_:That's what I saw.:_

Phantom was sometimes more observant than I could ever hope to be.

"What the hell does that to a person?"

How on earth had it been replicated? How on earth were some of the same things that I apparently struggled with... staring back at me, like that?

_:He has perhaps lived a long life.:_

"Bullshit. So have many people." I said, not really defending the older man, but knowing that he was the same age as my parents made it eerie to know there was something very, very different about them all. He was not like my parents, but he was also not totally like me. There was no way he was, anyway.

I would have felt it.

_:I've never been so... intrigued by a human...: _Phantom admitted, before covering his own ass. _:Other than yourself, of course, Danni.:_

"Don't worry, Phantom. The feeling, for once is... completely much mutual."

I puzzled over the newest mystery that had sat its pretty little self right in front of us, just out of reach like a chew toy on a higher piece of furniture.

Was it because people with money just... were different? There had to be a lot of betrayal and heart break for one who was loaded... right? Perhaps it was just my imagination, but I didn't remember seeing any kind of photos of family, friends, or 'people'. There was memorabilia of the Packers, and also tons of things about his company but nothing... personal.

"Do you think it is rude to ask?" I finally muttered, fed up with trying to scratch Masters secrets to the forefront without some kind of actual proof from himself.

_:Danni. Don't be stupid.: _He playfully sent a wind puff to blow my hair. _:Of course its rude to ask.:_

And for a moment I smiled, stupidly. My mind doing a one-eighty, as it was sure to do on occasion, on everything Masters and focusing solely on Phantom. A switch flipped as something new and shiny rolled into view.

"Do that again,"

I egged him on. Playfully.

With all the huff and grumble of an old man putting on a show of great pain to himself, Phantom did just that. The wind around my hair tossing it every which way for a mere second, before Phantom lost it and it fell flat. The giggle that escaped him was boyish in all its charm, and I allowed a grin to reach my own face.

We'd been learning, over the months of our self-imposed outcastment from society in general, that we can do **many** things neither of had thought possible.

Well, with one **body** anyway.

Phantom was king of the wind, and now, for the most part, I was queen. Because of that, the air around us acted differently than anywhere else in the **world**. It was kind of like a pet, but with far less _sentience_ and much more **brutal element**. The excitement of a new puppy was there, but the surety was lacking.

Therefore, it was awesome good at following simple commands from Phantom, even though he was not actually on the plane of existence it thought he was. Well, awesome good was a lie. It only worked half the time and Phantom had to concentrate ever-so hard to get it to do anything – which was all worth it in the down time.

"Are you trying to remind me who's actually the dangerous one?" I asked.

Phantom was easily indifferent about it, but was glowing with pride that he had managed that one small thing. The wind settled around me into a light breeze before fluttering out like a candle.

"Because I heard loud and clear 'lion in sheep's clothing.'"

_:Do stop Danni, I might get a big head,:_ He said, but I could tell he was triumphantly happy by my sincere praise.

His hand, a ghost of it, dropped on my shoulder, patted once and then disappeared like we did when turning invisible. Except it was all in my head. And I appreciated that, even though Phantom and I would never meet face to face (that we knew of), we could give each other the physical support we might need throughout the years.

It was nice to know we were more than just a freak. More than just souls lost and found.

The very word that Phantom would growl at but I would shove insistently in his face, because we were a freak. Of nature. Scientifically, we were two beings that had no right to continue to exist. It was a complicated thing to begin _even_ processing. An abomination to some in the Ghost Zone, and _if_ the humans ever find out what we were... Well Salem, with the whole Witchcraft thing, will look like **child's play.**

Since we were freakish, and we met every so often with a few ghosts from the Ghost Zone that had not had their minds torn to ribbons by my parents. Clockwork, the protector of all of Time and Space, had tried to give us advice on meeting inside our own head. For both of our sanity. When we slept or when we found the time and the place to meditate.

Sleep was way easier and way harder to manage.

Clockwork had said picture a blank room. It could be black, white, gray, or even floral if we so wanted. But it had to have two doors. One for me and one for Phantom. It had to be a place of neutral meeting. It had to be open, but small. So we would interact with each other.

He'd told us this almost three weeks ago, the fourth time we had met with him. And since he was the ghost who knew all about time and space – well, you kind of don't disobey or argue with that. So we tried.

We slept and tried to find each other only ever to greet ourselves in the morning with a put-off-sigh..

Meditation was harder because there was no good place to go. My room was invaded now and then by my parents who were now _all aboard_ team 'care about Danni', the usual rooftops didn't have their usual luster and for the most part Phantom and I had **needed** those places to breath before we destroyed the city.

And the ghosts of the city helped with none of it.

Phantom and I tried to reason with them. Those of them that could be reasoned with. There were not many. And those that could think usually ran before my parents caught onto the scent of a new ghost. The other ghosts... well, they were all just figments of their-selves really.

The Ecto-Splicer, Fenton-Thermos, and Fenton-bazooka kind of did that to one who was stupid enough to get caught in the cross-hairs..

_:__**Please**_ _stop thinking of that. You're making me ill.:_ Phantom interrupted my mind, that had gone on a long tangent.

It amused me often to think that Phantom grew ill of that, but could watch a slaughter go down without blinking an eye. Just went to show the priorities some people had.

"Sorry." I said, a whisper because I was also feeling ill now.

"You know what will help with this?" I asked Phantom with a smile, and he groaned out a 'please no'. "A shower!"

_:Can we not?:_

"Hey, you haven't been stuck all day in the same car and the same air as Jack Fenton." I said, shivering as I realized I might actually be able to see the germs if I looked hard enough.

_:Be my guest then._: Phantom said, still not all that happy about water. _:Just remember, you can wash all you like but blood is __**under**_ _the skin.:_

"Piss off." I muttered the words over to myself before ultimately yawning and stretching. It had been a long day in the car. A shower was just what I needed. Especially as I was still feeling ill at the image Phantom had painted. Jack Fenton's blood ran through my veins. Gross.

Then I realized it was not myself and my thoughts that were making me ill.

I blinked as I felt the room around me with hesitant hands. It was swarming with low-level ghost energy. Which was nothing new. Ghosts flocked to more powerful ghosts. It was a part of life as a Halfa.

The fact was, there were many more ghosts around me than I had ever attracted by myself, was what alerted me that something was wrong. The pure power of the low-level spirits in such a great quantity was making me put-off my lunch. Only because none of them had a form, and simply were just... _there_. Kind of just... haunting me.

Which led me to believe there was some kind of natural portal around. Or another ghost portal that allowed ghosts to come through… Or perhaps there was another ghost hanging around, that was as powerful, if not more so than me.

I shivered as my built in warning system, a puff of blue ice-cold chill, came out of my mouth. It wouldn't do that for merely a spectral mass of energy. Only ghosts.

_:That is quite... __**potent**__.:_ Phantom said, immediately on the offensive.

"Tell me about it." I said, but it came out very small and strangled. Another puff exiting my mouth that left frost-burn in its wake.

_:Damn it. I really wanted that shower.:_

Phantom said nothing and we both waited for the inevitable show-down.

Instead of a ghost coming through from the ceiling, floors, windows, walls, or doors Phantom and I were blown half-way backwards in our own mind as _memories_ flushed us:

_-My own father was drowning in his sorrows, drinking bottle after bottle of Vodka, straight, until his liver just gave out. Sick and tired of keeping his menial existence from being dead. My mother, on my arm, as I finally managed to get what I wanted in life. Happiness. Revenge, best served cold. Seeing the oaf who had ruined my college experience, lower than dirt in the eyes of the world was the best feeling in the whole-_

I staggered under the weight of the emotions and memory - **no** not memories. Hopes. Dreams. Steeped in anger and horrifying power. The feelings of power and greed and insurmountable relief flowed through me

I'd never met a ghost who actually _Projected_. It was said to be a very, very rare ability. Only blessed to the most powerful of the power. To actually force emotions, memories, or dreams onto the host of someone who was not only unwilling but unaware – was something akin to a god-like power.

It wasn't just that either. The images I had seen were immortalized against my eyelids. Much more – I actually felt the want, an almost need, to help whoever this was achieve his goal. Murdering my father had always kind of appealed to me after the ghostly-blood-lust and want to see of violence came through from Phantom's side of the bond. The only baggage he had brought along with him when he had been smashed into my own soul.

I could feel my own anger bubbling up towards the surface. Wanting to agree that seeing Jack, despairing on the ground while I stood tall, was exactly what I wanted.

My mother though. _Ew._

A shiver traveled its way up my spine like a fire. I had never actually seen such gruesome thoughts that were not my own. Directed towards my father, anyway. It made the pit in my stomach grow colder. Phantom grew warmer at the violence in those _memory_-_wants_.

_:Snap out of it, Danni!: _Phantom snarled at me, getting me away from my inward thoughts and back to real-life.

_:Holy shit.:_ I said, so eloquently. Eyes wide as I shook my head, to get it clear again. I realized, with a shake of my head, a moment after that particularly gruesome scene that that was not, in fact, my own memories or my own projected thoughts.

Someone else was thinking of my parents.

It was someone else.

_:He's powerful.: _Phantom said.

_:I repeat: **Holy shit**.: _I said.

We were then hit with another wave of memories, dreams. This one... a bit more powerful. My eyes snapped opened as I felt Phantom bubbling up, ready to tag-team me out of this existence so we had a better chance to fight. His mind was sharp as we both shot a look towards the door of the room, sitting up sharply :

_-I was sneering down at my own father, who was sobbing into his alcoholic beverage, bemoaning how he would do anything to have 'Maddie' back. Anything to be forgiven. Anything to have my love again, as well. Acknowledging how much he had fucked up. I, this person who I was, would not forgive. Ever. The person that I was, laughed in my father's face as he tried to plead with him for his life back. As it had been. Before I had showed up.-_

I was left in the after math wondering how the hell I wasn't out murdering someone. It was a disorienting feeling, as I tried to separate myself from the other ghost. Confusing in a way that was more than... confusing - because the only thing I was absolutely sure of was the part about Maddie.

I didn't want it.

But Jack was another matter. I could feel my own anger sparking, and snarling at the singular thought that someone else hated Jack as much as me. For a different reason. It was almost like it justified my anger. Justified that I wanted to see Jack on his last leg, and me being the one to kick it down. See him, as he fell and looked towards me. Attentive for once. Fully on me. Perhaps not as dead as the ghost wanted him, but down on his luck all the same. Perhaps finally loving me – or in Jail. Maybe both.

I was zinged with energy at that particular image.

Phantom didn't even try and say something about it. Instead, he pointed out something a little more important.

_:They have to be close.:_

I responded, dazed_. :No other way could they project through walls if they weren't.:_

Whoever it was, he was also powerful.

Phantom and I took a moment to debate over whether we should start our running away early or stay and wait out this very unusual storm. The ghost, if anything, didn't seem to want to harm us. More like it wanted to... test us. And it knew where to test.

I wanted to stay, and Phantom cursed my curious nature. But I reminded him of something he always liked to remind me: _The enemy of my enemy is my friend. _And Jack may not be even on the radar of an enemy, but I had been harmed by him. He was no friend.

_:He's outside the door, somewhere.:_ So not outside the house. He was an inhabitant.

My hands shook as the dream-projections came faster, without any rhyme or reason:

_-A knife had entered my father's sternum and he was looking at me with this face that scream betrayal and hurt and it was... __**lovely**__-_

Somehow I found myself walking towards the door, drawn to the unknown ghost's presence.

_:This is not a good idea.:_ Phantom said, failing to get control of the body because it wasn't just I who was piloting. A need to see whoever this was had risen as my common sense fled. :_Danni, this is not a good idea!:_

_:I'm not running away until I have to, Phantom. This time, we stay. A little while longer.:_

And in this, for once, I was stronger than Phantom. Phantom's first nature was always going to be running away and mine was always going to be to stand and fight, hold my ground. Sway with the punches instead of flee from them.

Perhaps that would be our downfall.

I opened the door, the huge thing that was at least my height in width and twice my self in height. I creaked as it opened to the muted darkness outside the door. Taking a deep breath I stepped outside, expecting to be immediately involved with the newest ghost to catch our attention since Skulker.

Instead, I was met with silence. To our right, I craned my head. I saw nothing. Puzzled, I curiously pondered if the Ghost was invisible. Or not there.

Then the blue-puff of cold air burned the top of my mouth and I had to open it to allow it exit, before it damaged my mouth.

_They were here._

"_Why_. Hello, Daniella." The voice was soft spoken and had an air as though it had made this greeting so many times. It was also familiar.

I whipped my head around to see Vlad Masters, standing outside my door, directly where I would have been looking had I looked straight forward. Two feet in front of me, he stood with his hands clasped behind his back in a very relaxed but... powerful position. Regal.

He had not been there before.

There was nothing about this man, now, that didn't scream out a warning to my mind. Nothing that was harmless like he had been only a few minutes before. Perhaps not even half an hour if my inner-clock had anything to say about it.

"What brings you outside your room this evening?" Mr. Masters asked, his voice somehow managing to slope and smooth and dip like he was visually conscious of every word coming out of his mouth. As though the action was staged many times and rehearsed and repeated until perfected.

_:Did you feel him?:_ I asked Phantom.

_:He was not there... Not before we looked.:_

A projection came towards me out of the dark and pushed right past any kind of defenses I had:

_-The knife slashed outwards, taking the skin of my father, __**where**_ _I couldn't tell, and pulling and pushing until it all snapped open. Blood everywhere. The voice of Phantom inside my skull was mesmerized.-_

I shivered. The blue breath burning me again as it exited my mouth. This time in full view of Mr. Masters. The billionaire merely smirked, as if it was a normal occurrence. There was a certain smugness about his reaction and my legs weakened as I realized, a second behind Phantom, that Vlad Masters, _knew_.

It didn't even matter what exactly he knew. Just that he did.

I felt a dark sense of foreboding. Phantom urged me to allow him the body. Make room so he could ready us for flight and running. Like he was used to. The need to sprint and run was strong, but I held it's reigns tightly. Not allowing anything to show. Showing weakness now would not help either of us.

_:We have no clue whats going on.: _I said to Phantom.

_:All the more reason to __**not**__ stick around.: _He bit back, true terror biting back at me.

Perhaps I was mistaken about Mr. Masters, because he didn't look like he was even fazed by me.

When Mr. Master's had been at the dinner table, a time away from now, he had been laughing at my mothers jokes, glaring not-so-openly at my father, and all together ignoring Jazz and myself unless we spoke to him. Something had changed though. But was it enough to react at?

_:Don't be a fool, Danni.: _Phantom snarled, this time allowing me to feel how much he feared for us. He did not like the danger we were currently in, even if he didn't know how exactly we had come to _be_ in danger.

"I was just..." I started to say, before cutting myself off when I saw Vlad Masters' look of clear amusement that I was about to lie my way out of something. Out of something he already knew.

Adults being smug and so sure was a point of tension for me.

I made a sharp movement towards the clearer side of Mr. Masters and an arm came up to stop me. Jolted the frame of the door as I was almost close-lined by it. The arm was an inch in front of my face and I stopped breathing as the very air around us stilled. Trapped by social norms and being rude if I dared to duck under it and run. Trapped also by the oppressive force of whatever Ghost had been projecting, as well.

It was clear he hadn't meant to do that, but he refused to move his arm from blocking my path. My breathing kicked up a notch and I glared at him, hiding my true fear behind a wall of anger. From what I had seen, Mr. Masters was a very kind host. Not one to hold his guests hostage, even if it was only a simple arm that caged me.

"Come now, _dear_, we've hardly finished talking." As if that was an excuse for his trapping of me.

I backed off, knowing somewhere deep inside I shouldn't push it.

Phantom agreed, even as he coiled and hissed in my mind.

"What do _you know?_" I asked before Phantom could protest.

"Well, Daniella, I know a great many things about a great many subjects. What did you have in mind?" Vlad said, with a twinkle in his eye. His voice holding, and not letting go, of that quality that made it seem like every word he said had purpose. To either cut or to mold.

I cut him off from going forward.

"Funny, but I'd appreciate if you cut the bullshit, Mr. Masters." I said with more strength in my knees that I was feeling at the moment. "What do you want?"

Hopefully to anyone watching, I was pulling off a rather _awesome_ rebel teenager - when in reality I was pissing my pants.

_:You have no subtly, Danni. You will be the death of us, if you continue this way.: _Phantom said, resigned to our fate, even if I was the worst to be trading words with this man. Phantom **had** been training me.

It just might not be... _clicking_, all that well. Being a fast-study was not one of my strong points.

Masters looked me over, curiously, before smiling brightly. If I was willing to show any kind of weakness, I might have even back-stepped into my room to escape it. He looked like a man who had won the lottery. Practically beaming.

"Please," Mr. Masters said. Looking all harmless and frail for a second as he raised a hand in protest, before it was placed against his own chest. The slightest of pressure folding the fabric under his digits. "Call me, Vlad. Mr. Masters sounds so... _old_."

I was hit by unfiltered and undiluted power, the exact moment after Vlad said his name. As if the naming-power that all names held could be spoken into existence that easily. It was in the air around us, sizzling near my ears in a way that reminded me of fireworks.

He also smelled like a person of authority. Like those from the far-frozen had. The brand of musk fit for a king.

_:Shit.: _I said.

_:How is that possible?: _Phantom said, recognizing just what Vlad had done_. :The only ghost we've __**ever**_ _felt compulsion to follow has been...:_

_Pariah Dark._

Phantom realized just how in over our head we were. Just as I did.

"Vlad," I repeated in a whisper that sounded more like an acknowledgment of the power his name held. I hadn't meant for it to come out that way. It just happened. Like many things tonight that I was losing control of.

I gulped, as the realization that even if we had run, those precious seconds ago, we would surely have been caught. Like a bird in a net. There could even be a shield over the house at the very moment. He had gone to school with my parents after all. He wasn't an idiot.

_:Doomed the moment we stepped over the threshold.: _Phantom said, the doom and gloom getting to us both.

"Now, Daniella," Vlad said, "Would you mind if I came in?"

I was petrified of saying yes or no.

"You said you wanted answers? Well." Vlad stated with a raised brow. "I don't believe anything we have to... **discuss** should be said in such an... _open_ environment. Do you?"

_:Was that some kind of veiled threat?:_

_:Let's hope not.:_

I mutely nodded before stepping out of the way for him to enter, slowly as if I was unsure of my own actions. I hoped the shaking of my hands wasn't as apparent to him as they were to me. It was all I could do not to allow Phantom to take over. Allow us to run. Because surely Vlad must know of us. What we are.

What he must be. Or perhaps what he controls.

I'd never met a human who could control ghosts, but I had heard that it was possible. There were bounties on their heads, though, and I did not remember Vlad Masters being one of them.

Lower spirits usually didn't stick around those who could control them... Then again, they were _lower spirits_. Bright? Not so much.

He stepped into the room and removed his hand from where it had been blocking my path, Vlad's smirked face was unchanged, until he was behind the door. His smile widened, imperceptibly, as if this had been his plan for the whole night. As I closed it, because whatever was going to happen – it was happening behind closed doors, Vlad turned to me and looked me over with a pensive look. A fist under his chin as he observed me, from not even three feet away.

A dismissive sound and he was soon turning.

Phantom's mind was an emotional support beam for me as Vlad walked towards the corner of the room. Where there were two wing-backed chairs in front of a fireplace. (Yes, I am more than aware of how big the guest bed room was.) I had lost what little stability I had thought I had found in my legs and they turned to Jello after the complete look over at I had been given.

"Come. Sit." Vlad ordered as he took his place, crossing his legs, much faster than I would have, in the lighter chair, closer to the window. "I don't bite. I promise."

There was a moment of indecision, before I followed.

_:Let's not piss him off until we know what... is going on.: _Phantom said.

_:I don't know if I can do that.:_

_:For once?: _He said. _:Lets try.:_

_:This coming from you, Phantom?:_

_:You taught me how to piss people off.:_

_:It's a special talent, I thought __**you**_ _of all people would appreciate. And who knows when to use and when not to.:_

The whole conversation that seemed longer in our head, only lasted a few seconds. Mostly because our inside voices spoke pretty fast.

I sat down with a scoffed laugh inside my head and once again noticed that Vlad was looking me over as if I was a piece of meat. Which allowed me to look him over, too. Vlad was... or rather, looked incredibly dangerous. His nose was pointed and had a vicious angle to it. His eyes like the gaze of a vampire, cruel and sharp. I shivered in my short-sleeved shirt, wishing I had thrown on something warmer. I wasn't used to this Wisconsin weather after all.

Vlad noticed my reaction.

"Cold?"

It sounded like a challenge. One I was more than up for, but through Phantom's warning, I didn't push it.

"Maybe a little. It's colder here, after all."

He did nothing else, just continued staring after nodding once, sharply. His gaze was like a hawk.

I wasn't sure if I had actually seen him blink during our entire exchange.

The silence stretched for a few more moments and I was getting sick and tired of it. Tired of Vlad ignoring what I had requested in the hallway. Answers.

_:Danni,:_ Phantom warned, just as I completely disregarded his warning. _:Don't-:_

"What is _going on_?" I asked, throwing whatever subtly I was going for out the window.

"Now, Daniella," Vlad said, in a patronizing tone, which interrupted Phantom as he stormed at me for being hasty.

In answer to that, I finally allowed Phantom to get ready to shift. To be battle ready. He curled in my Core and I felt very chilled but safe. Then, Vlad did the weirdest thing, as if he sensed the shift happening within my body.

He sniffed. Once. Twice. Deeply.

Vlad's eyes sparkled as he took a long draw of air, as if he was some kind of dog, sniffing out its prey. It was so absolutely mind-boggling I sat in the chair stunned, instead of continue to prepare myself for the run of a lifetime as Phantom was urging me.

"_**Finally**_. I thought it might have been a fluke." Vlad said, chuckling.

"What?" I demanded.

"How long have you been a Halfa?" Vlad questioned, in a much darker whisper, losing almost all pretenses he had adopted. As if we were on the playground, under the slide, telling horror stories and he was setting the mood. Setting it really well.

If the shock of him knowing the term was huge, it was much more bizarre when I realized what it meant for me. Subsequently, him as well. The walls of society and propriety all dropped around me as I realized he **wasn't** a human who controlled ghosts. Couldn't be, because those people didn't know of Halfas.

He was something much worse.

_:Double shit.:_ Phantom said.

Words had power. Just as names did, but I had been so very clueless until he had said that word, that it was like a light was being shone directly in my face, blinding me.

_:Don't you dare push him-:_

"How long have **you**?"

_:Danni, why can't you just __**listen**__?:_

Because it was clear. As I looked closer now. Why his eyes had spoken what Phantom had read. It clicked like a piece of a puzzle I didn't even realize needed to be done. Shoved itself in my face.

I could see it. Like me. It all clicked. I relaxed marginally into the wing-backed chair and tried to calm myself. It was like watching a movie about being sick and then realizing that you have all the symptoms. That your sickness is the same.

When I had been told, along with Phantom, that there was another Halfa… we hadn't exactly imagined this. Him. And yet. Here he was.

_:It wasn't loneliness.:_ I said to Phantom. _:It's difference. A similar loneliness but one that is really... not.:_

He was a freak like we were.

Maybe it was all the revelation changing my thoughts, but I was all of the sudden very thankful he wasn't some human who controlled ghosts. That would have involved a fight. But another ghost? Another Halfa... And he was older. So why had no one told me about him? Surely he was known to the Ghost Zone...

_:There is something missing from our knowledge.: _Phantom said, this time his voice softer.

_:The ghosts have been keeping something from us?:_

_:It would not be the first time.:_

_:Really?:_

_:Ghosts are notorious for... being sneaky, Danni.:_

"Daniella," Vlad said, unimpressed with my new found knowledge. He tutted condescendingly. "I do believe I asked you first."

There was no point denying what we both knew.

"Three months and almost three weeks." I answered, because I had nothing to hide at this point about this subject. To ghosts this was not a secret. "End of next week will be the fourth."

He raised a eyebrow and almost allowed his mouth to drop open. Sitting up straighter, he looked me over as if he had a new found respect or was just plain shocked.

"A mere three months?"

Disbelief was clear on his face.

"And you've no Mark?"

It was my turn to be shocked.

"No..."

Halfas didn't get... Marked. The Ghost King himself had told me such. We were a rare commodity, not unlike gold. We were not _above_ the laws, per se, but... well there just were not many laws **written** about us.

Not to mention, the ghost doing the Marking had to be _at least_, if not **more**, powerful than the Halfa in question. Which was why Pariah had told us we to answer to him. Him alone. And he had said we did not need to be tattooed with his particular brand of ownership.

Not yet, at least.

_:Fucking Walker's Law._: Phantom said.

_:Fucking Walker's Law, is right.: _I responded.

_:Could the King be lying to us?:_

_:It is possible... but **God**, I hope not.:_

Walker Law was the very first Law that put the caste system of the Ghost Zone into power. The Historians are a little hazy on the facts, but everyone agreed after the overthrow of the Observers and the Clones, the peace had not lasted long enough. And the Ghost King and Walker, the ghost of Prison and Law, came together to put the caste system of the Mark together.

And ever since, any new ghost is given six months to the date they are born to run from getting the Mark. The more powerful you are – the longer you run, and the more powerful people come after you.

Through a tattooed Mark, a ghost could form a Master-Slave bond with another ghost. And in this way, the power system was established. Those of the highest power controlled ghosts of lesser power, until it was down to the lowest-of-the-low level ghosts, those who could actually keep a stable form anyway. Which basically meant, if you were powerful, you were only a few ghosts down from Pariah Dark himself.

Those ghosts were known as Knights. Anyone lower than ten ghosts down on the totem pole from either the King, Lords, or the Ladies of the Court - were simply Peasants. The weakest were Slaves.

The King, Lords, and Ladies were in a league all to their own. Outclassing even us Halfas.

"Pariah Dark said I did not need it." I said, with eyes narrowed, knowing that I had gotten off track.

_:Is he Marked?:_ Knowing that was just a plain rude question to ask, Phantom refrained from forcing himself to the forefront.

Vlad looked me over, again, this time finding something new on my blank limbs that were poking through my shirt-sleeve holes.

"Perhaps I was merely mistaken..." He said, before grinning and getting back on subject.

"Three months without me knowing about you, child? That is a feat I had thought _none_ capable."


	3. Know your Enemy

Next chapter here we come! I've got most of it all written out now, and I'm pretty happy with it.

Hope you guys enjoy!

* * *

Last time:

"_Perhaps I was merely mistaken..." He said, before grinning and getting back on subject. _

"_Three months without me knowing about you, child? __**That**__ is a feat I had thought none capable."_

* * *

**Know your Enemy**

* * *

_Perhaps… Perhaps misery loves company._

**-~DP~-**

If Vlad thought flattery was going to get him anywhere – he would be **completely** right.

Being ignored for most of my childhood, made me slightly more inclined to listen to those whose praised me. Beside my parents, of course. They were a lost cause and not **worthy** ofmy time. They'd had long enough to try and figure out their place in my life but... after the whole Jack raising a weapon against me – it hadn't helped their case. They could forget about me for all I cared.

With Maddie defending the giant oaf, it hadn't been hard to simply write them out of my life.

Jazz was a matter all onto her own, though.

"You have done remarkably well for yourself, you realize this, correct?" Vlad praised, again. The tone spoke of an undertone of impressed respect.

I felt myself relax the slightest bit.

_Respect deemed a certain level of… civility, right?_

"I've nothing to compare it with. So, no." I said, trying valiantly not to blush. It was an honest smile that crept over my face. Most people didn't recognize anything that great about me. It was... well flattering. "But thanks anyway."

I tried to hold back the need to say something more. Because so far, Vlad was showing me quite a large _dollop_ of respect. I had raised myself correctly, I liked to think, and with Phantom telling me to keep my manners acceptable it was almost **too easy** to wait for a response after his kind words.

Instead of demanding everything as was my nature.

Vlad had already showed a good portion of his hand by threatening Jack in his hope-dream-memory _Projections_. If I had responded negatively, I'm sure our conversation would be going **very** differently by now.

"I suppose you're wondering how long I've been... in this state?" Vlad gestured to himself. Legs crossed, hand fisted under his chin as he lounged in the chair and waved his hand up and down his body to **make** me look.

I nodded.

"It's been... oh, seventeen years or so. Almost to the date."

Here he chuckled.

"And I remember my first year fondly. Terrible time adapting, I can assure you. Fell through the bed at least _twice_ a day for almost a **month**."

A shake of his head, as he remembered with affectionate. There was something in the action, combined with the humor that made him seem… personable.

_:Humor.:_ Phantom huffed in my mind before settling into our core a little less forcefully. _:I wouldn't guess that of him.:_

I paused, my tense shoulders loosing their rigidness. Well, there he went again. Throwing my knowledge of what a possible older Halfa would be like out the window. He was older, of course, more knowledgeable – but already there was something about him I couldn't pin down.

And when he finally looked back at me, I could see there was something more there too. Something unfathomable. A hunger that hadn't been there before. But, I kind of believe our faces must have been similar. Mirrors, perhaps, because I could also feel the need to get to know this other Halfa better.

And not just to learn the knowledge that he had in his noggin, but… to squash the fear that wanted to rise up in me at the unknown he was.

Vlad was making it very hard to be totally terrified of him. He was… almost... _friendly_.

I'd never had any kind of friend older than me.

Adults just weren't to be trusted.

Thankfully, there were no other adults to see this betrayal of my own rules. And I decided that if we were going to be trapped, we might as well dive into it. Dangers be damned.

_:He's just toying with us.:_ Phantom said, watching Vlad carefully and analyzing his every move.

_:Compared to my parents?:_

_:They are different.: _

_:All the same,: _I said, as I watched Vlad watch me. _:I think I **like** this manipulation better.:_

Phantom agreed, his voice overlapping with Vlad's as the older Halfa said: "Comparing my first month to yours is hardly fair, though. I didn't have to worry about ghost-hunting buffoons walking in on me having difficulty staying visible and tangible."

"You can say that again," I said before I caught myself.

Vlad didn't even try and lower his brow. "I'd rather not... and I believe you would rather not, as well."

"If dinner was any indication of your feelings on the matter, anyway, Daniella."

I found myself nodding minutely, before stopping myself.

The way he slowed down, as if to savor either my expression or the words about to be spoken, made me stiffened. Lifting my eyes from where they had wandered. Down from his eyes to his collar and now back again. There was no outward malice on his face.

Plus, I remembered the dreams and hopes he had projected towards me. He wasn't a friend of Jack.

_:He's probably the only one I can bitch about them to.:_ I said to phantom.

_:I agree with that.:_ Phantom said. _:And considering that the bitterness we were feeling through the __**Projections**__, and the loneliness ...:_

I knew where this was going when Phantom's voice became glazed and subdued. The ghostly quality kicking up a notch.

_:Really it's a surprise Jack **isn't** dead a few times over. Or in a grave, still alive scratching at the surface of the coffin. Pleading for someone to come and save him. Oh! maybe he'd be slowly losing the air that is in the coffin and-:_

_:Phantom!:_ I reprimanded. Well aware that the best way to get rid of the bloodlust was just to allow him to tear something apart. _:__**Focus**__. Don't let your ghost instincts control you .:_

He righted himself with a shake and a sigh. _.:Apologies. But do you think should you bitch to him about your problems, especially with that in mind?:_

I was never really good with... 'should's and 'shouldn't's. I followed Phantom's advice, and only allowed most of my distaste for them show.

"They're complete asses. End of story." I ended up revealing. Which wasn't much of a reveal.

_:If only.: _Phantom said.

_:Thanks for that Phantom, really helping.:_I said.

_:I live to serve.:_

"I take it you and your parents don't see eye to eye on many things than?" Vlad asked, stippling his fingers in front of himself like I'd seen in every single villain in every single movie do. Except, when he did it, he made it seem more like a psychiatrist. Harmless.

"You could say that." I tried, very hard, might I add, to keep the bitterness from my voice.

I failed.

"And what did they do, to make it that way?"

_:We're giving away too much information.:_ Phantom said. _:Ask him something. Don't answer his question.:_

_:And how do you propose I do that without somehow pissing him off? In case you've forgotten – he's a fucking Halfa too, Phantom.:_

_:Quid Pro Quo.: _

Oh.

That could work. If Masters knew what it meant. Then again, most masters of word play knew the term.

I repeated it, instead of answering Vlad's question. He cocked his head to the side as he smiled. (How on earth did a man have so many different smiles?) This one was full of promise, and if at all possible – intrigue.

"Very well. I suppose that is more than fair. I have been cornering the conversation up until this point after all... Go on then. _Shoot_."

With so many questions to ask, I asked the one that was most burning in my gut. Pushing away my unease for just how quickly he had allowed the sharing of information to be bent.

"If you and my mother are the same age, and the same brand of genius, seventeen years ago would have been your senior year... How did you get turned into what you are now, with those two as any kind of _friends_?" My voice was way-beyond curious

It seemed that since we'd spoken the name of Halfa only once, on both our behalf's, that it was not necessary to bring it up again. And even though Vlad's eyes hardened into diamonds at the pointed question, he nodded.

"Fair is fair. One moment though." Vlad reached across to the table and picked up a phone. A slim cell phone, probably some kind of touch-screen if I knew Masters as I thought I did. Mine was only a flip-phone.

"I'm feeling a bit parched, and this story is not short. Would you care for some tea?"

Blinking dumbly, I nodded just once. "I don't like anything too strong... Earl Gray? Lots of sugar?"

"Classic, and do-able." He pressed a few buttons and then we were left waiting. "Clarice shall be up in but a moment."

"Clarice?" I asked, an eyebrow raised.

Who named their child Clarice? What was this, the fifties?

I couldn't really point fingers though. I was supposed to be a boy, and when **that** hadn't worked out they'd simply changed Danny into the feminine version I was. Adding an 'a' instead of an 'e' at the end to make it **twice** as feminine. Yes. Everyone and their uncle is aware that Jack was the one who suggested it.

"You'll recognize her. Unless you were too busy ignoring and driving your parents up the wall at dinner."

"I wasn't actively _trying_ to piss them off."

_:Not today at least.:_

_:Tomorrow though... __**well**__, that's a new day.: _Phantom quipped.

The silence was comfortable, as if we'd reached a stand-still. Then again, I had invoked quid pro quo. He had to answer first before I asked another. Or he was allowed another.

So we sat. Observing one another. Even though I was also lost in my thoughts with Phantom.

_:He can answer quite a few questions we've been meaning to ask.:_ Phantom said.

I snorted. _:Probably. But Phantom... I don't think he's got another soul inside him. He's too...:_

_:Calculated?:_

_:Alone.:_

_:There are other things than our unique situation we can ask about.: _

_:Like?:_

_:The Ghost King and why he told us we were not to be Marked, for instance.:_

_:Yeah. Somehow I don't think that's going to stand under any kind of scrutiny if we were to ask him.:_

There was a knock on the door and the maid, dressed in an adorable maids-outfit walked in with a tray balanced on a careful hand. It had a teapot, two cups, and a variety of smaller vessels. I blinked as she came in quickly, placed the tray down, and retreated. The door shut with a click and I wondered to Phantom if that was how our fate would be sealed.

She hadn't said a word.

Vlad and I moved on autopilot for a moment, readying our tea. He let his bag sit too long, and I didn't allow mine to sit very long at all. For a blinding moment, it was such a normal thing, I actually said: "Sugar?"

And he actually said **_yes_**.

_:I feel like we're becoming self aware or something.:_

_:I'm going with __**or something**__.:_

I only managed one sip before Vlad started.

"It was your _father's_ fault."

The tea was kept in my mouth, but it was a close call. The voice had cut through the silence like a thunder-clap. It was just as abrupt, too. The words were short and choppy, and I identified the tone of anger immediately.

I tucked my feet into the side of the chair, up on the cushion with me, as I readied for a good story. It also showed, somewhat, my good will that I was willing to get comfortable and listen. Something I think he knew just from a glance. He didn't smile though, in fact his usual easy facial expression was a little pinched.

"It was our senior year of college, as you know," Vlad said, his hand wrapped around the cup in a death grip, but somehow he still managed to make it look as if he was merely holding the poor thing. "Our final semester consisted of one last project. A pass or failing grade would be given with its completion. Jack, Maddie, and I all decided we would create a ghost portal. Similar to the one your parents have now but much less... **rudimentary**."

If he noticed my shiver at the mention of the accursed device, he didn't comment.

"We were only college students at the time. Only just delving into the _politics_ of ghostly-apparatus and theirs **costs**. So while your parents and I worked on the theoretical side in our lab hours, at night we were collecting material from garbage cans to make the frame for the portal. What we found consisted of coke-cans, bottles, pipes, the spare bits of metal from loft-beds that had been tossed, and more dreadful crap."

Vlad smiled at the memory.

"The three most brilliant people the campus had ever seen? Working on this one project?" He scoffed. "The theory was the most sound of our grade, which was enough to pass. But, of course, we had to try for the full 'she-bang'."

The way he used 'slang' seemed so out of place I almost interrupted him, but didn't as his face darkened.

"Too bad theory doesn't hold up in the real world."

At this point, his lips turned into a snarl as he continued to talk, the animosity for my father spilling forth. I was enraptured by his voice. The authority-tone he managed to convey in such short choppy sentences had me blinking as the intensity turned from three to ten. It was hard to image this man as old and crummy as my parents.

The fact that they were the same age just seemed so...

_:Sad?:_ Phantom supplied.

_:Yeah. A fucking travesty.:_

_:He's not the dinosaur your parents are. Even at only forty years of age.:_

Since he looked like he must have when the accident happened; I hoped that didn't mean I would be forever stuck as a small child of fourteen.I didn't have any 'assets' as my friend Sam had labeled body parts that attract the male kind. I wouldn't have any hope in this world.

Phantom snorted at that.

Ignoring Phantom, I said. "I'm guessing this is where the good part happens?"

Vlad smiled, a tiny upturns of the lips. "Oh yes. I promised excitement, after all."

"Can hardly wait."

He chuckled, and looked younger for it. Knowing that my mother had been so young and guessing that Vlad had probably been the same, Phantom kept repeating what was already know: That Vlad didn't look a day over twenty-two. Which was probably when the accident happened.

Vlad rubbed his brow as he brought up what was probably the most painful day of his life.

"It was once again your father."

It amused me that Vlad caught onto the fact that I disliked my father. Knowing he had been the one _Projecting_ what I had seen made it a little more... manipulated.

"Excited and bumbling like usual. It was always him who ruined it, when something was to be ruined. At the time, I was very much his _best friend_. So I trusted that he wouldn't change any variables or equations without first checking with at least Maddie. At the very least."

The way he said best friend, sounded like poison was touching his lips. I leaned forward subconsciously as I listened.

"Honestly, the mistake was completely idiotic. Your father jumped a few steps ahead in the procedure. He switched a few chemicals around, effectively reversing the polarity of the- oh you don't much care for that, do you?"

He must have noticed my glazed eyed look.

"I didn't actually _pass_ chemistry." I admitted, thankful he didn't go all scientifically-babbling at me. Jazz and most other people weren't that kind.

"Then I shan't put you through it." Vlad said, kindly. And I believe it was true kindness. "Simply put: He messed up the recipe and instead of a portal we brought together an explosion."

I winced.

"You were caught in the cross-hairs, I'm guessing?" It wasn't a hard guess.

"I had my upper half inside the portal when the elements were mixed. So, yes. The cross-hairs is as good as any term to use for it."

Yikes.

_:That explains the half-dead part.: _Phantom said.

_:More than.: _I said back.

"When I came to, I was in the hospital. There I had the misfortune of staying for a rather long time. Alone."

"Wait," I said, puzzled. "But you said my parents were there. And your _best friends_ –"

Knowing my parents, it didn't take long for it to click.

"_They didn't fucking visit you_?"

I dawned on me mid sentence and my anger showed.

_:I knew my parents were very self-centered, but this?:_

_:Your parents are turning out to be rather horrible people.:_ Phantom snarled, on Vlad's behalf. _:Even before you were born it seems.:_

It slapped me in the face.

:_Holy shit they didn't just do it to me.:_

Vlad said, oblivious to my conversation with Phantom. "A horrible realization to take in, along with the ghostly powers, wouldn't you say?"

I nodded, keeping tabs on my anger. If my fist strangled the fabric under it, however stiff it had been, I tried not to notice. It dawned on Phantom first, before me, that Vlad had also just tested us.

A horrible realization of my parents being what I knew them for?

A good daughter wouldn't allow them to be dragged through the mud. And _dammit_, Vlad knew I had just drawn the line of where I stood on them. Not speaking in their defense. Not _trying_ defend them.

But… we could also be wrong. Vlad was also the only other Halfa. Perhaps… Perhaps misery loves company.

With a smile, Vlad opened his arms wide, a gesture as if he wanted a hug, but I knew that I was just as if he was saying 'whallah'. "Ah, but here I am. The product of your father's idiocy. A fate, I think, we both share."

It was an open ended question that wasn't even a question. But Vlad had shared, so I would also. I'd invoked quid pro quo for a reason, after all.

_:Not too much.: _Phantom said.

_:I'm not going to bleed us dry. Just our start, without you of course. Maybe even garner some pity points.:_

Phantom accepted that.

"And your accident?" Vlad asked. "Tit-for-tat, I believe would be the next best question."

I nodded and sprang right into it. Not wanting to dwell.

"It didn't start with my father. Not directly. Not this time, at least." I began, taking a sip of my tea that had cooled rapidly to start spinning my yarn.

It tasted too cold but I drank it. "It was all my fault. Simply because I was curious and bored."

Vlad placed his empty tea-cup to the side as he listened intently. Almost unnerving as he didn't blink.

"My parents had been complaining all week about their stupid portal not working. Not an odd thing, really, just out of sorts for them. They are always down in the lab, hardly ever topside. In fact, this was one of the only times they were ever **out** of their lab. And, well, I've always been a little... **unstable, **I guess you could say, when it comes to their _attention_ towards me."

I could tell Vlad didn't know, but was listening, so I elaborated.

"See most days I'm alone and in need of something to do, right? Jazz refused to play _Monopoly_ with me because she had an essay to write. Parents were out of the house. My friends were doing homework and promised we would hang out in a few hours... What else was I to do but snoop?"

I was good at snooping now, with Phantom, but before I had been such a novice. If my parents would have had any number of security systems installed, I wouldn't be where I was now and Phantom would still be a run-away.

"That day, I found that the door to their lab was unlocked. And I, being the curious child that I am, went down the rabbit hole."

I was proud of that literary reference. Alice in Wonderland was the only book on my shelve that I had read more than once. The last time only a few weeks ago. There was something about her own plight that called to Phantom, and he read it on his own when I was alone with my thoughts.

"Their lab smells awful, by the way." I grimaced, both from remembering the smell and the dregs of tea I had gotten in my last gulp of tea. "They have a boat load of crap down there, so it doesn't surprise me that it smells. Just that it hasn't **rotted**. The experiments and inventions... I kept away from. There is _no_ good reason for me to touch them. Not to see what they do and certainly not because the ghosts would fucking smell it on me."

_:We have other things to do besides touch all that vile equipment.: _Phantom snarled.

"I've heard of how amazingly they work." Vlad said, relaxing into the chair. "Ghosts give them... _glowing_ reviews."

"Too well." I confirmed, continuing, trying not to hang onto the fact that Vlad talked to the other ghosts. "They work way too well."

That was **one** way to say it.

"I saw the portal, a big giant circle with all manner of bits and pieces coming out of it," I continued. "It wasn't finished, far from it actually, but knew this was what my parents were having trouble with. A stupid portal to another world. I was a sceptic at the time. Hadn't seen a ghost, therefore they didn't exist. The one thing my parents wanted to work more than they wanted to breath, and I didn't believe it was worth anything."

I smiled sardonically.

"I want to say that the rest is history, but it really isn't. I don't think about that day very often, mostly because my parents are complete buffoons. Still looking back, its hard to believe that my parents had created something so innocently dangerous. What I know now makes it easier to swallow."

"How did you get the Portal to work?" Vlad asked. "What on earth did they miss?"

Here came the kicker.

"The on switch, of course." I answered.

"No..." Vlad almost chuckled. He probably would have if the outcome hadn't been me half-dying. "They forgot to turn it on?"

_:Kind of sad, huh?:_ Phantom said. We'd talked about how stupid our accident really had been. How circumstantial.

"Unfortunately, and kind of fortunately, yeah. The placement, probably my father's, made it all the more... unique of a situation."

Vlad, in a bow to his intelligence, knew immediately what had happened. "Don't tell me they put it on the inside... Maddie wouldn't have allowed such a stupid oversight- _they did."_

It was kind of amusing to see Vlad Masters, the richest person I'd ever met, slap a hand to his face in pure resignation to the fates. Less amusing when he gave my mother such a huge oversight.

Jack wasn't the sole person to blame for my upbringing. Nor the placement.

I think.

"Ohhh, who in their right mind does that? Jack! That's who."

"I don't know. They both looked it over." I said, trying not to sound bitter. The pain was a remembered thing, and I had Phantom because of it – but it still hurt to know my parents were the ones to blame. "The end result was also something they probably never thought would come to be in a million years."

Vlad looked me over, as if trying to truly see me.

"What is the relationship of your parents and yourself?" Vlad asked.

"Isn't it my turn to ask a question?" I responded.

He smiled and beckoned me ahead with a flourish of his hand.

"Sorry. Getting ahead of myself. Ask away, my dear,"

_:I'm asking about Maddie.:_

_:You're crazy.: _Phantom responded_. :Just watching his reaction I'm betting there was some kind of... __**relationship**__.:_

_:Everyone has a relationship with people, Phantom.: _I said.

_:You know what I mean.:_

And I did. But it did not stop me from asking, twirling my cup in my hand self-consciously.

"It's obvious you hate my father... maybe more than I do. But what about my mom?"

A pause. A deep breath. Vlad's eyes went cold.

"In college we dated briefly. We broke up. They never visited me in the hospital, but they were oh so kind to send me an invitation to the wedding." Vlad said. But said no more to clarify.

"That's it?" I asked.

"Is that another question?"

"No..."

"That's my relationship with your mother," Vlad said, rolling his eyes. "Now, if you'd be so kind. Tell me about your parents."

I felt a little put off that he didn't tell all he felt about my mother, but I also knew that it was probably a sore subject if they had dated and she had picked my father over him. Especially since she picked Jack over him. _Geesh,_ that had an even more squich-factor than ever.

Unlike Vlad though, I had no qualms about dragging my father and mother through the dirt. It's just not many people had been curious about me enough to ask.

"As if you couldn't guess, my father and mother are not the best role models." I began, feeling Phantom blanket me in a warm mind melt. It gave me the strength to continue.

"For most of my life, they've been either indifferent to me or ignored me. I can guess the reasons, but I really don't have to when they tell me how busy they are in the lab all the time."

Vlad narrowed his eyes. "And this has never been a problem for them?"

"**Ghosts are the problem**," I said in a cheap mimic of Jack's voice. "They always say. It's gotten pretty ironic in the last few months, but it's been their motto my entire life. I'm not expecting it to change just because I manage to grow up without them noticing."

I wasn't breathing heavy, but I felt like I was. Inside my mind, anyway. As much as it wasn't physically exhausting talking about my parents, it was very much so mentally. Mostly because I always had to dredge up past wounds and pretend they didn't hurt. And since I didn't do this often, the hurt stayed for a long while.

"Have you ever thought of revenge?" Vlad asked, as I calmed down. "Against your parents."

"What, like twirling mustache and tying my father to a set of rail-road tracks, revenge?" I responded, forgetting momentarily that we were supposed to be trading questions. "Or like whatever projections you sent towards me?"

He smiled, a fanged smile, and said, "Not quite what I had in mind. Those were simply to test you, anyway."

It was far easier than it should have been to brush off the fact he was testing us by throwing images of him killing and destroying my father and taking my mother as his own. It was too easy to throw off those thoughts.

Curiosity piqued, both Phantom's and my own, we leaned forward. "Then what?"

Vlad closed off a bit, leaning backwards and sipping his tea that was most assuredly cold.

"Well, my dear, I can't reveal too much, not until I have your sworn promise you will not interfere. Or your promise that you will help... if you so wish."

_:Hmm,: _Phantom hummed.

_:What does that mean?:_

And I asked as much out loud.

"You're a wild card, Daniella." Vlad admitted, as if it was no great secret. "Your sister as well, but not as much as you pose to be. I knew the oaf and Maddie had had children, but you both were a shock. A half-ghost half-human girl, who I had no knowledge of and a book-worm."

"A wild card, huh? Me?" I said, snorting to myself. _He had no idea._ "Go on."

"You must understand, Daniella," I narrowed my eyes as he effectively switched into 'adult-condescending' mode. "You are not what I imagined Maddie's and Jack's daughter to be."

"Oh yeah?" I said, putting as much bravo into my actions as I could as I leaned back as well.

"Very much so."

"And this... unimagined _me_, as you say, is a problem?" I asked. Phantom snarling at the implications. Vlad had been very pleasant up until now. As far as I could tell, neither of us had lied, either.

"The opposite, I assure you."

I cocked my head, befuddle.

"When you and your sister walked in, trailing your buffoon of a father and your beautiful mother, I was very much ready to begin my plans then and there." Vlad laughed at my expression. It had been a long time since anyone but my father had called my mother beautiful.

:_There is more there than meets the eye._: Phantom said. Then again, Phantom didn't find my mother even kind of attractive. And if a century old ghost didn't find someone attractive... well. Actually that was a horrible argument. Maddie just wasn't beautiful.

"You really have to imagine my surprise when I caught the scent of a girl who smells more like a _library_ than a human and another, younger girl who smells more like **me** than her own mother. More like me than a human should have any right to."

Phantom and I were speechless.

"You've known since I first walked in?" I demanded.

"Yes." Vlad said.

Such a simple answer, but it really threw me for a loop.

"You had no idea about me. I could have been volatile!... So why'd you _Project_ at me so strongly?" I asked, mind turning a hundred miles an hour. "I could have been a **daddies** girl for all you knew. I might have tossed my cookies at those images you projected."

Vlad raised the teacup to the table. "But you weren't. And you very much have kept your '_cookies'_."

I didn't know what to say. Very much less, what I should do. Especially as Vlad offered me a chance for revenge that nobody else, not even the Ghost King, had offered me.

_:He has us right where he wants us.: _Phantom said, darkly.

_:Yes, but technically... it will all work out in our favor.: _I said right back.

_:He could take Jack out of the picture.:_

_:We're running in a few days anyway...: _I said. :_It shouldn't matter that Jack is out of the house – but it should create the perfect __**environment**__ for a run-away mindset for any social worker to believe should we ever be caught...:_

The only other person like me, who was most probably ten times stronger than me, was scared I would ruin his plan at total revenge? If I was _any_ other child, and if Jack was any other child's parent- I might have considered it. Ruining Vlad's plan an turning out the kindness he had provided.

"I won't stop you." I said, with Phantom's blessing. We both knew this could be our break. "I won't interfere. But I want to hear about it. Your plan... _Perhaps_ I'll want to be involved."

Phantom especially wanted to that was for sure.

"Excellent." Vlad lit up with joy and smiled. He tried to look through us, but Phantom and I both chuckled at that. Looking through someone who was practically schizophrenic? Good luck Vlad.

"But first, I must ask," Vlad said, "How far are you willing to go?"

I thought back, as Vlad asked that, to when I was younger. Vlad may have had years to deal with his loss of humanity and to get used to what he was now – but I was still very young. A Halfa of _only_ **almost** four months.

Phantom and I were a baby at being what we were.

And when I had been just human, younger, I had been a baby with no one. I was only a child at the time I started understanding that my parents were not very good at their '_duty_' as most other parents called it.

I was eight when I realized, a broken heart along with it, that nobody would love me as they should have. That my father and mother both were completely at ease with just ignoring me. And I learned how to ignore them, too. When they tried to buy our love with money, I had taken it. Jazz too, because she knew the value of an education later in her life. When they had locked themselves in their lab with a food supply for a week, it was easy to forget about them and do my own thing. Much easier than looking at them every day and watching them see through me.

When they used that four letter word that I loathed to hear from their mouths, in drops of pity-duty, I stopped listening. 'Love' as they said it, sounded like a poison that was slowly killing me – not giving me life.

And perhaps that was where it all stemmed from. The inability I had to accept the love my family was trying to give me.

"I'm willing to go as far as it needs to go to get them out of my life." I answered, still not quite sure how I could explain it to myself or even to Phantom **why**. To ruin their lives... it would give me a satisfaction few other things would.

"It will just be Jack that we are destroying," Vlad warned, suddenly. "I have... other plans for your mother."

I tried not to notice how passionately he said that, and how his voice deepened. It was one thing to know I would be avenged on the father side – but to know Vlad still held some kind of feelings for Maddie?

I shivered but nodded. To show I listened. Half the equation was more than enough to even the playing field in my own household. One parent down? I had a long time to go before I had to worry about anything **else**. Maddie would come later.

"Do you want to hear the plan now, little badger?" Vlad asked, as if noticing my funk.

"Little... _badger_?" I asked quizzically. What kind of endearment was that?

"Something my father used to call me," Vlad smirked, something hidden behind his smile. "I think it suits you. Badgers are rather... fierce little animals. Don't you think, _little badger_?"

Nobody had ever given me a nickname that was... nice. 'Fenturd' and 'Dumb Danni' were the most popular, so it was a nice shock to hear something with a good connotation behind it. _Danni_ and _Ella_ were just variations of my name.

"I can live with it." I told him, honestly. Surprising myself.

Vlad nodded and then sat there for a long moment. Still as a statue, as if he was deciding how much to tell me. I found myself yawning as I waited for him. His eyes flickered towards the corner of the room.

"Oh dear, I had not realize how late it had gotten..."

I blinked, not expecting **that**, before looking towards the clock as it chimed softly – so softly I hadn't been paying it any mind. It read almost one in the morning.

"Well, shit." I said, with wide eyes. It hardly felt that late. I felt marginally tired, but then again Phantom and I had a weird sleep schedule.

Vlad was getting up when I looked at him, rearranging his coat and buttons into a more straight line. His left hand then reached into the folds of his jacket. Since we had spend the past almost hour hours talking and just kind of in each others presence, neither Phantom or I took it as a sign of aggression. We were not wrong.

He took out a sizable book.

_:Where the hell has __**that**__ been?: _Phantom demanded, shocked.

I hadn't a clue.

_:There is no way he had that in his jacket this whole time... what is he? Like board thin?:_

"I feel you may need sleep, so I'll leave you with this," Vlad handed me the book, stepping close enough that I could get a whiff of his cologne. "And the promise to return tomorrow night to finish our talk."

I took the book grudgingly, and it was surprisingly not as heavy as it looked. Nor as… _human_ as it should. The glow of green was light and faint.

"What is it?"

Vlad did not smile. In fact he did the complete opposite. "Something I think you'll find enlightening... if not a little off putting. You should read it before tomorrow night, if time permits you. It will... shed light on a situation I believe you to be knowledgeable about."

I narrowed my eyes but nodded as I looked over the bare-covered book. It looked thick, but not all that weighty.

We had nothing but time. Even if that sentence was the most cryptic thing I had heard all night.

"Sorry to leave you hanging, little badger," Vlad apologized as he started towards the door. "I'll tell you all about my plans tomorrow night. Perhaps we can also giving a little show... mine for yours and all that."

My mind took a turn into the gutter.

_:What on earth does he mean?: _I demanded from Phantom who merely sighed.

_:My form.: _

I blankly waited for him to continue.

_:He wants to see our ghost side. His other form, for our other form. A trade off.:_

_:Oh.:_

"Tomorrow night then Mr Ma- Vlad." I stopped myself from saying his full name. He had requested I say his first name anyway.

"Good night, little badger."

And the door closed with a finality that made me think we had made a miss-step sometime during our talk. Like we had left the playing field leveled in Vlad's favor. Which was ridiculous because he still didn't know about Phantom.

_:He is older than you. There is that, Danni.:_ Phantom said. _:He's always going to have the upper hand. We can just have a few... surprises to make our pot sweeter.:_

I still didn't like that we were on un-even footing.

Phantom and I stayed up a little while longer, staring at the book.

"What do you think it is?" I asked, turning it over.

_:Well, you could **open** it and see.:_

"And ruin the surprise?" I asked playfully, with a yawn cutting off the end of the last word. Getting up, I started towards the bed and snagged a pair of pajama bottoms, the warmest pair I had.

_:He gave it to us to read...: _Phantom drawled, just as I slide under the covers. _:So, perhaps we should?:_

"True, but I'm tired." The magic of a warm bed called out to me even as the frigid covers rose in temperature with me in them.

_:Then go to sleep.:_ Phantom said, and I could feel the mental eye roll. :_The book isn't going anywhere._:

And really, I was **excellent** at following orders. So I did just that.

* * *

And there we have it. Any good/bad thoughts?


	4. Just a Matter of Time

**Just a warning:** Danni likes to curse a lot this chapter.

* * *

**Just a Matter of Time**

* * *

_"There is more than one way to skin a cat, after all. Even if I personally don't find skinning a cat any kind of fun."  
_

**-~DP~-**

We woke up the next morning with a head-ache. A minor one, but enough of one to make me wonder what the hell we had done yesterday to warrant it. We'd gotten out of the car at the mansion, parents refusing to say anything to us except that we were visiting one of their old friends, then dinner, then...

It came back.

"**Fuck**." I growled into my pillow, but fairly shouted in my head.

_:Gahk.:_ Phantom said, as I shocked him out of his thoughts, and he momentarily took control of our body to throw my arms up. Which hit a rose on the intricate headboard. _:Holy shit, Danni! __**Don't do that**__.:_

_:Sorry,: _I said, sheepishly. _:Didn't realize you hadn't woken up... fully at least.:_

I rubbed my face, limbs still floppy and weak from sleep. A sharp pain traveled down from my wrist to my elbow and I immediately cradled it with a yelp.

_:I think you broke my wrist when you took control.: _I yelled at Phantom, as I sat up, arm still carefully wedged between my chest and other arm. Trying to flex one of the fingers, I was immensely grateful to see them move – even if it hurt like a bitch. _:Or sprained it.:_

_:Oops.:_

I growled at him as the cold of the room hit me. It was at least four degrees lower in temperature than in the bed. Which I only knew because ever since Phantom and I became intimately acquainted, the ability to tell temperatures to almost a close half a degree - was there. Kind of like my ability to breath. Innate.

_:It will heal in an hour.:_ Phantom said. Looking through my eyes and feeling through my emotions. He let it go with contempt as he sat back. _:Don't be such a baby.:_

_:Can't believe you really think it's a fucking grand idea to break my wrist while we're in the house of another __**Halfa**__, who – by the way – we still don't know what he totally wants?: _I glanced at my bedside table. _:Or what that book is about.:_

_:You're in a pointing fingers mood, aren't you?: _Phantom said in response, as he settled fully into his place in my cranium.

_:What if I am?:_ I asked as I allowed my arm to lay limply against my leg, straight so it would heal as such. I used the now free hand to snatch up the glowing book. It was as light as it had been the night before.

_:Damn it, you are.:_

"Oh shut it, Phantom." I said with a grumble as I sat the book on the bed. So the spine hit the bed first and opened to the middle. A random page numbered 134. It had a bunch of law-babble written on it, and I dismissed most of it to turn to the very front cover.

_:Did that say beheading?:_ Phantom asked, as the cover page took a moment to reveal, on account I only had one hand to hold it with.

_:Probably.:_ I said dismissively, wrestling with the book. I crowed as I planted my palm on it.

The words looking back read:

**Us and Them: A Ghostly-Spectral-Citizen's Guide to the Law.**

A cold shiver ran down my spine, signaling Phantom's observance and position in my core. Up close and personal. I couldn't blame him, my pulse raced as I fought to turn the page, where it noted the author and a bunch of other babble.

_:The Ghost-Writter?: _Phantom demanded, as if he was remembering a time in his life before he had been sucked into my dying body by way of Portal. _:That pansy?:_

_:Know him?:_ I asked, shocked. Phantom, by ghost standards, had been a loner. Living in the Ghost Zone by will of his own power and running so he was never Marked. Most ghosts, let alone the King, had never heard of him. A ghost among ghosts. With only a few contacts that he choose to use to pepper his lonely afterlife, including the first ghost who had ever met him: Clockwork.

Which brought us almost full circle.

Phantom was mumbling to himself and I only caught the end.

_:A long time ago...:_

Which might have been the turn of the century as much as I knew.

_:He sure rose through the ranks. Last I heard his Master had been almost forty down the ladder from Pariah.:_

I said, as my lip curled. _:Well, looks like he got an upgrade.:_

Phantom was less amused, and a bit more spooked than he was allowing me to read into.

_:A book on the laws of the Ghosts.:_ I murmured to myself, a sinking starting in my stomach. :_What could this possibly hold?:_

Phantom took control for a moment, flipping to the next page which happened to be the index. _:Answers.:_

His-my finger landed on a section, about halfway down the page, peppered next to a number 8. **Halfas and Us.** With only 13 things on the list, all ranging from ghosts to humans, this one was underlined. And started on page 160.

We didn't do anything for a moment, just took in the magnitude of what was in front of us.

Laws. And the laws about us.

"Fuck."

Phantom, not one to swear, followed suit.

How **naïve** of the both of us to think we were above the law, or that the laws about us were not yet made. The Ghost King had just said we were the same as Ghosts, but more powerful. Something we could both attest too. As a human, I was much stronger. And Phantom... well, there was a reason he had stuck to being faster than anyone else and twice as uncatchable.

_:Dangit. Shit. Fuck. Damn it all to hell and __**back**__.:_ I ranted, not even knowing what we would be delving into. Vlad had given this to us, expecting us to know what this meant...

_:Why now? Why this book?:_

_:It's a peace offering...: _Phantom said, abruptly tearing my mind away from my dooms-day view.

:_I think.:_

_:How do you mean?:_ I asked, looking down at the book and wondering how painful it would be to turn the page.

_:There is obviously knowledge in here we do not know... And Vlad is giving it to us... so we can learn?:_

I caught on.

_:And you think Vlad is letting us have it? Just like that? We haven't proved __**anything**__ to him yet.:_

A nod, which he didn't elaborate on. Very much mental, but I felt it all the same.

_:Why didn't he just say it?:_

_:I'd bet he's Marked.:_

My shoulders hunched, and my wrist ached as I twitched my fingers. I stared unseeingly at the numbers on the page and the words.

If Vlad was Marked, and he had a Master... That was reason enough why he hadn't been allowed to tell us. Ghosts had been silenced around us for far less.

_:So then there __**is**__ something they've been keeping from us.: _I said, more than aware that if Phantom had been a somewhat normal Ghost, we might have had the upper hand in the political aspect – but he was something much better I thought. Resourceful. Cunning. A wild-card that was as old as civilizations but quiet and more likely to stick to the underground and the seedier parts of the world.

_:Let's not look too far into things... Not until we've read.:_ Phantom suggested, but I could tell his voice was stressed.

So we did. And it was a good thing we did, but I could have lived forever without knowing and been happy.

Then again, it was also a dry read.

I would have been happier if Vlad had simply told us this, even if I understood why he hadn't.

_Halfa's are a renowned and daringly impossible breed of ghost and human. Much is unknown about them and their ilk, especially the way in which they have come to be in our world as well as their human counter-part. Our illustrious and magnificent King of the Ghost Zone, ruler of all, Pariah Dark, has accepted their talents and existence into his kingdom with open arms and an open mind. Much is still being debated about Halfas. One of the most well-known ghosts-human breed is Plasmius, who is-_

_-the illustrious Lord, the King, has announced such that any Halfa, newly born into their life, is fair game after their fourth cycle of life. Giving them less time to adjust than any other ghost in the allotment timing of their Branding-_

_-any Halfa not following the law of Walker, subsection fourteen, index twelve, page three will be lawfully bound to the King himself. Furthermore any Halfa found to be in direct violation of the law of Walker, subsection fourteen, index twenty, page nine will be held accountable for up to one thousand years imprisonment-_

_-These Laws have come into effect on the Winter Cycle's beginning, of the 5903 year of our Kings reign. All persons wishing to delegate for the Halfa breed should do so immediately. Halfas will be considered legal, law abiding denizens after their fifth year-_

Phantom and I both sat back in shock.

_:This changes the game.: _Phantom said, a whisper in my mind because my thoughts were just too loud.

_:When the hell was this published?:_ I asked, suddenly, flipping back to the very front. My sore wrist doing better than it had been before. It wouldn't be more than a few minutes until the pain went away. _:These laws are definitely new... and the ink smells fresh.:_

I landed on the page with the authors name and scoured it for a publishing date.

_:Danni, don't do that to yourself.:_

There was no pity there, but resignation. I allowed a bit of my self-righteous fury to leak through.

_:The King __**lied**__ to us, I think I can __**do**__ what I want.:_ I found the date, quickly converted it between the time I knew from Phantom's knowledge and now. Ghost time to human time was a little wonky, but if I had it right – it was two months ago.

Early July. It was now October, going on November.

_:A week after we visited the palace...:_ Phantom said in awe, scratching out the anger. Turning it sour, too.

I groaned, and slapped a hand to my forehead. _:I'm impressed that they were able to work that fast... __**Pissed**__. But impressed.:_

The anger slowly ran through my fingers and I found I couldn't hold onto it as well as I had been able to only moments before. A new emotion, a feeling, took its place. Uncertainty. Fear. Perhaps both wrapped together. It made me shiver as though I had been touched by a ghostly hand.

My wrist was fully healed, which meant an approximate hour had passed from whenever we had risen. I took a gander near the heavy curtains and noticed the faint light seeping through. Not even trying to stop, I allowed myself to groan and land heavily on the bed.

_:We could run now.: _Phantom suggested.

_:Looking like a coward to one of the people who might try and hunt us in the coming months?:_

_:You're talking to a coward, Danni. That's how I survive.: _Phantom said, stiffly.

_:I didn't mean that.: _And I hadn't. Phantom could get pretty touchy about his before-after-life, before me._ :I just mean... I have no grand-picture or illusion that he __**won't**__ hunt us down... God Phantom, I thought we were safe.:_

I pushed forward an image that was running rampant in my mind. Vlad was _powerful_ and chasing us halfway across the globe while we were on our last leg. Everything would hurt. We'd be running for a long time before anyone caught us. Survival would be our middle names, but it would be hard. It would be new, too, because we ourselves were new.

_:Doesn't sound appetizing.: _Phantom sighed.

_:For once... I agree.:_

_:This is such a shit-storm we've gotten ourselves into.: _I responded._ :We haven't even had this much crap to deal with since that time with... what was her name? Blue flaming, hair girl?:_

_:You think I remember?:_

_:You do better with faces than I do.:_

_:I don't recall her __**name**__, Danni. Just that we accidently broke her guitar and she went crazier than the Box-ghost without his boxes.:_

_:Well, it doesn't matter.: _I said, dismissively, but feeling a little lighter at the topic. _:It's a shit storm, we've landed ourselves into it, and it kind of sucks. Same situation as last time but this is a bit more... large scale?:_

Phantom tried to laugh, but it came out self-deprecating and harsh. _:You're comparing a food-fight to being hunted down like a prized stag:_

_:Okay, so maybe its a tad-:_

We were cut off by a knock on the door. And puzzled, I looked towards the drapes again. There was enough sunshine to tell me it was earlier than I really should allow people to know I was awake at.

It worked better when people assumed I slept till twelve just because I was a troubled child. When in reality four hours was all I needed, I just preferred something a little more... leisurely. Phantom as well. Plus, I just didn't like people assuming things about me.

_:It's like ten.:_ Phantom complained.

The banging continued and I forced myself to get up. "Coming. Coming."

_:If it's Vlad, slam the door on his face, please.:_ Phantom said.

_:With pleasure.:_ I promised.

Sadly, it was not Vlad at the door. More surprisingly, it was the one person in the entire house I wanted to see at all hours of the day and every day after.

"Jazz." I blinked back the surprise in my voice.

She was standing outside the door, her fist raised as if she was about to knock again. She looked a little tired, but that was to be expected. Jack's driving did that to us. Her auburn hair was sleek though, so I knew she had at least taken a shower – which was much more than I could say for me.

"Danni!" She exclaimed, with a bright smile that tugged at her tired eyes. "I didn't wake you, did I?"

"No, not at all." I said, self-consciously tugging a hand through my hair. Now all I could think about was a nice long shower. Hot, too.

_:Pass.:_ Phantom grumbled.

_:You always pass.:_

Considering he had a good story behind it, still didn't take away from the fact that Phantom had some kind of weird aversion to water.

"Well, I was sent to get you for brunch." Jazz said, an apologetic smile on her face as she shrugged. "It's in an hour but...Mom and dad's orders. They want us to give a good... impression for Mr. Masters."

I groaned out loud. Of course the parents would go on Nazi mode. Now that I had met Vlad, it seemed even easier to understand why. "Idiots. I'm taking a shower then, come on in."

I paused. "I mean, if you want to wait for me, anyway-"

She rolled her eyes but entered into the room. "We're in this craziness together, if nothing else."

Looking around, she then whistled low. "_You_ got a nice room. It's even got a little fireplace – nice."

"Did you not get one?" I asked, raising an eyebrow as I walked back over towards the bed where my suitcase was popped open. I glanced out of the corner of my eye and noticed the book was still out.

Well. Crap.

_:She can't see that.: _Phantom hissed. _:She wouldn't understand. Can't understand:_

It was the one thing Phantom and I agreed on vehemently - Jazz was not to know that my parents actually had a leg to stand on ghost wise. And even if that meant keeping myself and all I was away from her: Then so be it.

Jazz was shaking her head behind me as we both came closer to the bed. "It's a nice room, yours is just a little more... grand. I guess."

Here she smiled and that was the exact moment I reached the bed. I flipped the book up underneath my shirt and then turned towards my suitcase to pull it towards me.

It worked well enough that Jazz just flopped on the edge of the bed and began to talk to me.

"You know, I know you've heard me say this, but this road-trip hasn't been all that bad." Her voice was too cheery and I knew immediately that she had been put up to this by either one or both of our parents. She sounded hesitant to even try and talk 'good' about this entire disaster. "I mean, sure, we haven't exactly gotten a lot of sleep – and, well, don't even **mention** Minnesota, but it's been fun. I've gotten to read almost my entire collection that I've brought and -"

"Save it, Jazz." I said as I pulled out my clothes for the day, including all new under things. The bra I had been wearing was on its third leg already. "This road-trip has been one giant waste of time."

_:Amusingly enough, this is the part you're lying about.: _Phantom snorted to himself. _:Somewhere, someone's laughing.:_

_:Just because we met Vlad and subsequently learned about all the shit that is coming our way – doesn't mean anything.:_

_:Except perhaps our __**freedom**__. You know, that thing we like?:_

Sometimes, I wanted to punch Phantom.

"It hasn't been a total disaster!" Jazz protested as soon as I grabbed a pair of jeans and turned to her. "I mean, we would never have learned about this side of mom and dads history if it hadn't been for Mr. Masters hosting his party tomorrow."

I almost dropped my clothes. "What? What party?"

Jazz rolled her eyes. "Were you really not listening? There you go again, Danni."

"I listen," I defended, knowing I didn't. "Just might have missed that tiny detail..."

"Dad has literally been singing the entire trip – 'Goin' to Vladdies house, Vladdies house, Vladdies house. Going to Vladdies house cause he's g_onna have a really huge important party_!'"

The fact that I could remember the tune and had just pushed it away as another random and stupid song made me blush, and rub the back of my neck.

_:You missed it too?: _I asked Phantom. Accusing us both at the same time.

Phantom sniffed._ :I don't listen to the oaf.:_

Well. That was... awkward. Man, we suck at this whole survival thing already if we missed important details like that.

"Sorry. I guess I just kind of tuned it out?"

Jazz sighed but nodded, then proceeded to tell me what the party was about. "Mr. Masters has reached one billion dollars in revenue for this quarter and wanted to celebrate. There was also talk that it was his birthday on the twentieth. Two birds, one stone."

_:We listen to everything from now on?:_ I said to Phantom.

_:Fine,:_ He said, begrudging me that. _:Even if that is __**impossible**__ in our current state. We will listen.:_

"I guess it's a good thing I brought my 'little' blue dress, And heels." I mumbled to myself as I closed the suitcase and stood back up. Hiding the fact that I was actually quite stoked to wear them. It wasn't every day, after all, that dweebie-girl Fenton got to look pretty.

"You know Mom forced us both to bring something." Jazz said as she settled on my bed to wait for me. "Did it really not occur to you that we actually had a destination in mind?"

I snorted. "The way _mom_ and _dad_ do things doesn't make sense. If we made it out of the state, I was considering that good luck. If we were on the road. Better luck. If we didn't die. Well call the news-station, we've got them a story!"

Scooping up the rest of my washing products, all enclosed in a gallon zip-lock bag, I moved to the bathroom.

"Don't snoop!" I called out as I closed the door.

"Crazy little Ella," Jazz mumbled with fondness, not knowing I could hear her. "But always right on. Mom and Dad... what on earth did you do...?"

I had been setting my stuff down and just idly listening to her talk, trying to do better on the whole we-don't-listen-as-well-as-we-should thing. I hadn't meant to hear her say that, but now that I had, I turned the water on to warm it up and then crept back to the door – trying to hear something else. Another tid-bit into my sisters mind.

"- First with the skipping school, and now the silence, and further more... gah! The disregard for **them**. I mean, I know they kind of _suck_ at being good parents, but they haven't forgotten us that often... Alright, this _year_. They haven't forgotten us much this _year_."

She was just rambling to herself. In a place she thought no one else could hear her.

_What did that mean? _I wondered, Phantom listening in the background as I stepped into the shower. Jazz held no hero-worshiping ways about my parents. She thought they were as whacked-out as I thought they were. For differing reasons, but enough of it was simply similarity at work that we got along splendidly.

Most days.

We were siblings, after all. We had our spats and cat-fights. Over the usual girl things like the bathroom, winning at a border-game, who was making dinner because our emotionally compromising parents hadn't been seen all day, and, of course, which one of us was washing dishes and laundry? They'd lessen over the years as we both went to school and saw less of each other – but our relationship really hadn't changed.

Our parents sucked, and we had had to rely on each other. A co-dependency that should have been on them had been thrust to the two of us.

_:She's the only constant in your life._: Phantom said, helping along my thoughts as I became stuck.

_:The only good constant. Besides you, but do you count as a constant – if you're only in my head?:_

_:I don't mean like now, Danni,: _Phantom said. _:I meant, as in, she has been there your __**entire life**__ as an entity of good. Where your parents have fluctuated so much it just doesn't connect to them.:_

"I hate this." I muttered to myself as I finished washing. Getting out of the shower and pulling along a towel, I tried to get back onto a subject that still was important.

_:What on earth are we going to do about Vlad?:_ I said, shivering in the puffy-steam of the after shower as I swiped the mirror clean.

_:He's going to know we read the book... Or at least the part about us. It's going to be clear.:_ Phantom said, as I stared into my reflection.

A shower did wonders for my completion and the oil on my skin was washed away leaving behind almost perfection. Not pretty, but in the sense of clean slate skin – it did its job. Since I had almost died, or rather half died, a lot of my bodily functions just don't... work. Properly. I still need to use the bathroom and oil is still produced, but I haven't had any cases of acne for the entire period. Nor has my hair grown. In any place.

And my hair on my legs, armpits, and ... _down-there_ was fairly bushy.

The whole red-flood still came, which I could have done without, but from what I noticed, it was going to come in cycles of two-months. Perhaps more as I got older. We were very young – this whole thing was new to me. Everything was a trial basis.

_:What if it __**was**__ a peace offering?: _I asked as I stared into my soul filled blue eyes. The palest blue that had been staring back since the accident. The color almost drained from the sky blue it had been. It was a testament how much my parents saw of me. They thought they were contacts, which was a brilliant idea and I had been telling everyone that.

It still hurt that they hadn't noticed for almost a month after the accident.

_:Then we would be a fool not to accept.:_

_:What on earth would he want from us though?: _I asked, drying my hair and watching it poof. :_In case you haven't noticed – he's got almost everything he could ever want.:_

_:But those who have much still lack something.: _Phantom said._ :What's that saying... money can't buy happiness?:_

My arms stilled as I blankly looked towards the ground, completely inside my head. _:What... he wants a friend?:_

_:We __**are**__ the only other Halfa alive... or dead. Or both.:_

That had us both chuckling for a minute at the word play.

_:We are also__** really**__ young.:_

_:Not really. Our average age is probably somewhere around thirty... He is much older than you. To me, he's still a child:_

I shocked myself by stilling and thinking that over. He was much older than me. Technically old enough to be my father. Yet. And there it was. The yet. He wasn't bad looking, he was basically the only other one of '**me**', the species wise, around, and there was just something about both those facts that made the pull of wanting to know 'why' into a need.

_**Why.**_

_:I can't do this right now.:_ I said, restarting my body and hurriedly dressing._ :I don't... I'm not making any assumptions unless he says something.:_

If Phantom heard something more in my mind than I did, he thankfully didn't point it out.

"That was quick." Jazz said as I exited, still running my hands through my right-above-shoulder length hair.

"The water heated up fast." I said, grumpy.

"We ready to go?"

Jazz just raised an eyebrow. "We still have half an hour."

"So?" It was my turn to look at her like she had grown another head.

"You want to be early?" Then Jazz just looked at me funny.

"Jazz, _honey_," I said in a patronizing tone of voice. "This mansion is way bigger than any house we may ever _have_. It's going to **take** half an hour to get there."

She snorted which turned into a real laugh. Tinkling chimes and all. "For a second there, you had me worried."

I just smiled at her and was very happy for the umpteenth time that I had another person in my head to help me think up excuses. Phantom Just snorted but was much more relaxed as Jazz laughed. It was connected to how relaxed I became, but it felt nice that both our reactions, for once over the last day or so, hadn't been strained.

"You do make a sound argument. Let's go," Jazz said and then winked. "And if we walk slow enough, we might **actually** make it in a half an hour."

And that was what I loved about Jazz. She actually went along with my crazy attempts at humor.

As we walked, neither of us spoke what was really on our minds. I mention nothing about my worries that Jazz knew _nothing about _and she mentioned nothing about how worried she was for me, or whatever else happened inside the innocent genius brain. We talked about everything that wasn't important in a **bid** for trying to make it important to us. Everything was laid bare except for what was under our skin.

And we both lied to each other, but in that subtle way that was both acceptable and totally unacceptable. We _agreed_ to be lied to.

We reached the door to the room where dinner had been served with time to spare, but not much. We had taken the long way and gotten 'lost' on the way. Which Jazz accounted to my poor 'direction' skills, but we both knew was because she had gotten distracted by a pretty picture and a statue of cheese. A little gold statue of cheese.

I hadn't thought Vlad had been so serious about his obsession.

We walked in to Jack and Maddie hounding the head of the table, where the illustrious Mr. Masters sat. Jack waving his arms like a mad man and Vlad looking carefully calm and collected as he sipped orange juice out of a glass.

"-**ut Vladdi**e, we could really use the funding. You have no idea the break-through we're close to!"

"I'll think about it, Jack." Vlad said in a voice that was almost too cool to be talking to an acquaintance of so many years.

Jack looked as if he was about to protest but Maddie laid a hand on his arm and settled him down into his seat. A passing glance of what they thought was love – which probably was, I don't know how their minds work – and then they were both back in their seats.

"Danni-girl! Jazzy-pants!" Jack shouted once he saw us both standing awkwardly as we had when we just walked in. We both flinched at the cheery attitude and Jazz put on her fake-smile to placate them.

_:Here we go.:_ Phantom muttered, souring my mood further with his own distaste of my parents.

I just glared and set my mouth.

"Morning!" Jazz said, cheerfully. But seeing as I had been with her all day, it was clear to see that she wasn't.

I said nothing as Jazz sat next to Vlad, and I sat next to her. Maddie was directly across of me and I didn't even try to keep in my disdain for being this close to her. She ignored me in favor of making sure Jack was quiet.

"Hello girls." Vlad greeted, just as the maids came out to start laying out the feast of breakfast. "You're just in time! Breakfast has just started. What would you like to drink?"

As Jazz answered, I watched Vlad closely.

He looked just as he had last night. Or well, as he had looked at dinner. Gray-peppered hair that might just be a lie for the humans around him, and his youthful face. Hiding his other form as well. There was no signaling from my ghostly-blue-breath, so he had to be hiding his signature some how, too.

_How though?_ We both had no clue.

Vlad was looking at me directly in the eyes. Catching me as I stared at him, twirling my silverware.

"And you Daniella?"

"Hmm?" I said dumbly before being reminded by Phantom that we were supposed to choose a drink. "Oh, apple juice? If not water. Please."

We'd gotten dehydrated once and that had not been fun. I had almost turned see through and we had hid away in the attic for almost four hours drinking buckets of water.

Another repeat was what I never wanted.

Vlad's lips quirked and waved the maids away as they heard what we requested. His demeanor told me he was in charge and very much comfortable at the head of the table. His eyes said something different. They were laughing, almost.

My blood ran cold and I knew he had a good idea that I had read the book.

I glared. His lip twitched.

"So what do you think of my humble house?" Vlad asked, and clearly it was pointed towards me. My family, thankfully didn't quite get the subtle pointing and answered in a group.

"It's beautiful, Vladdie!"

"The garden is stupendous."

"The library is pretty nice, Mr. Masters."

And by the smallest crinkle in his brows, I knew Vlad hadn't wanted their answers. I stiffed a giggle behind my fist.

_:Oh, this is too good.:_ Phantom said, with a snort. _:Watch the vein in his neck.:_

It bulged. _:I almost feel bad for him.:_

_:Yeah, not so much.:_ Phantom said, as the twinkle in Vlad's eyes returned.

"And you, little badger," Vlad said, using the nickname he had given me sent a jolt through me. "What do you think of my home?"

Put on the spot, with my family staring quizzically between Vlad and I. Now that I was the one on the other end of it, I could see just how fast he could turn the table. It made me uncomfortable but it also made me respect him. The fear was already there, but came forward much more forcefully.

"It's nice," I said, and Maddie glared at me. "Monumental. Scandalmongering, even."

Jack looked quizzically at Maddie who explained the 'big words' I used.

"Well, thank you." Vlad said, and perhaps there had been a laugh about to come out. But Jack, of course, ruined it by speaking. Loudly.

"Oh! Yeah, Vladdie your place is enormous! Just like Danni-girl said," He beamed at me as if that would somehow bridge the gap we'd had forming. I allowed him a smile, which was more of a twitch of my lips, but he took it to mean something more.

The conversation quickly took a turn for the worst as our drinks were brought and everyone ate.

Most of the food looked amazing, but it wasn't much of a surprise with everything Vlad had already showed he had. Money. _Check_. Finesse? _Oh yeah_. Food? _Yup_. Which was enough to make me want to just kind of lounge around his house like a fat cat.

That made me sound bad, but... well. My life hadn't been apple-pie.

I chose the makings of a sausage-egg sandwich, with cheese and just about any other kind of toppings I could find on the table. Including tomatoes. Jazz always commented that I had the appetite of a boy.

If only she knew.

_:Fatty.:_ Phantom said, watching queasily as I ate.

_:Just because you don't eat doesn't mean you can hate on my food.:_ I said through my sandwich. Which was heavenly.

_:It's a primitive thing.: _Phantom said._ :You know since I don't eat it's repulsive to me.:_

_:Yup. So shut your trap and let me enjoy a meal I didn't make.: _I made sure to take an extra big bit with tomatoes and all other slimy feeling foods._ :Before I make sure it's repulsive to you.:_

Phantom said not another word.

The rest of the table was not as smart.

"Our research indicates that inside the ghost portal, the ghosts live on islands," Maddie said to Vlad, which was sitting with his chin fisted under and he was staring at Maddie as if every word she said was new. "They even have some kind of government, if the ghosts we've manage to capture haven't been lying."

Phantom and I froze.

"Maddie, that's hardly anything new," Vlad said dismissively. "There have been hundreds of reports of ghosts all saying they have a government. There have also been hundreds of reports stating the _exact opposite_. You can't trust everything you hear."

We thawed, but listened to the conversation after that. Watching everyone closely.

Jazz had tuned everyone out a long time ago and was staring at the wall, alone in her thoughts. Jack and Maddie were both arguing with Vlad, quietly and without their usual bluster. When Jack wasn't stuffing his face with pancakes as if they were going out of style.

Vlad's face wasn't so much angry as it was nothing. It was carefully blank, like he had on a mask.

I couldn't tell what he was thinking, but then Maddie said, "Oh Vlad, I don't think it was lying. We'd had the ecto-beast pumped full of electron-shock thermometric energy – I'd be surprised if it could even **think** to lie."

Then my parents laughed. It wasn't a cruel laugh, which made it worse. There was no mocking. It was just a giggle shared between scientists.

I wouldn't have done anything, if I didn't have a flash of what that must have been like for the ghost. How painful that had been. I could imagine **my Phantom**, going through that stupid torture. Them asking questions with a clip-board. As calm as could be. Perhaps Jack would be eating a square of fudge.

_:Danni! Don't-:_

I snapped.

"How dare you!" I stood up, slamming my hand against the table. Causing everyone to jump and look at me, save for Vlad. He just narrowed his eyes at me. An almost warning to stop. I could tell, because even _I knew_ I should stop. _"How. Dare. You."_

_:Danni,: _Phantom cautioned.

_:I've been silent for a long time.:_ I snarled at Phantom.

For once, even if he thought I shouldn't, he was right there beside me. Closer to me physically than I had felt him before.

"Danni!" My mother reprimanded. "What has gotten into you?"

"Oh, I don't know the torture of some innocent specter for your amusement, perhaps?" I said, staring her straight in her shocked violet eyes. "Because _Mom_, this is basically table talk for you. You see nothing wrong with torturing a **being**, that has _thoughts_."

"Don't you take that tone with your mother, young lady." Jack said, pushing his stack away. Meaning business. Furthering my point.

"I think I will take **whatever** tone that gets my point across." I said, getting up and pushing my chair away from the table.

"And since it's **not** getting across maybe I should be _yelling," _Here I did raise my voice._ "_Instead of just **talking** loudly."

They stared at me speechless and I looked to Vlad. "Thank you for breakfast, sorry it was ruined by the **pigs** coming to the table. It was terribly rude of them."

And I turned on my heel, not waiting for any kind of response. The silence following me as I exited through the door. Though the window was looking like a good option with how close it had been.

_:I know I shouldn't encourage you, Danni, but that was bad ass.: _Phantom said.

:_As if I could be anything _less_,: _I responded and Phantom understood. He could see where my thoughts were.

I could picture, clearly, the look of approval I had gotten from Vlad before I had turned away.

* * *

Phantom and I ended up wondering through the house and out into the garden. It was cold outside, and I had forgotten that lovely fact, but was too stubborn to go back inside to get a jacket. Meaning, I sat outside on one of the garden benches shivering in the cold with clenched teeth, refusing to go back inside.

_:You are only human, Danni.:_ Phantom said._ :It's not like I'm going to judge you for being human.:_

_:With parents like that,: _I mumbled, back finally stopping my chattering teeth as I got used to the cold. _:I don't think my __**blood is human.**__:_

_:Come now. Stop that.:_ Phantom growled. _:You are human and they are the pigs. __**Remember**__, you said as much.:_

I giggled. _:I did, didn't I? I __**liked**__ that one.:_

"Danni?"

The cold must have been dragging me down, because it took me a moment to realize that it was Jazz's voice.

"Go away." I said, but the chill had taken off the edge from earlier and I just didn't move away when she sat down.

"Here." She said and I felt something soft and warm hit my lap. I looked down and shouldn't have been so surprised to see what had fallen into my lap.

One of my jackets.

"I knew you wouldn't have come back in for it."

She never listened to me, but as I pulled the jacket on, I hoped she would _never_ change. The only constant in my life, as I had already said.

"Thanks."

It took her a minute of sitting in the silence of the garden to say anything. Perhaps the beauty overwhelming her. Maybe she just wanted to get the words right. It didn't much matter. She was a warm spot next to me as Phantom and I stayed silent.

"Everyone just kind of sat there after you left," Jazz said, rubbing my arm to get the circulation going. "Mom and Dad then just kept apologizing for your behavior. You know? Saying they'd raised you better than that."

"Jazz," I looked her in the eyes. "We both know we raised ourselves."

She looked away. A sadness to her shoulders.

"I know," Jazz said. "You just deserve to know what happened after you left."

I said nothing.

"You've been bottling that meltdown for a while, huh?"

With those words I nodded back the tears.

"You can cry, Danni." Jazz said, repeating those words she would always repeat after I had gotten in trouble.

I wasn't much for tears. It seemed pointless to me. Plus, I cried when I was angry instead of sad – like I was now. It took away the whole magic of tears if they only happened when you were broken by anger instead of by a softer emotion. Like love.

"I'm not going to cry, sitting out here on Mr. Masters bench in his garden, just because my parents are pansies."

"Alright," Jazz said, and I could never tell if she believe me or if she was just agreeing for my benefit. It was one of her psychological tactics to seem on my level.

The silence resumed after that. This time I was warmer and my thoughts were a little clearer.

:_We still have our meeting tonight with Vlad._: I finally said, watching Jazz from the corner of my eye as she stared straight ahead.

_:That can always be rearranged.: _Phantom said. _:He can't meet with us if we run away first.:_

_:We're not running, Phantom,: _I protested_. :Not yet.:_

_:Once we get home?:_

It burned me that home was associated with my parents.

_:Once we get to the house, yeah.:_

I focused on Jazz to get away from my morbid obsession with making myself hurt. Mentally or physically.

She was looking away from me, out towards the woods at the edge of the garden. The way the landscape sloped and formed, from small to large and back again, had caught her eye and she had the brightest smile on her face as she enjoyed life. It was no secret that Jazz could get lost in anything. Books, homework. Her concentration was legendary and direct.

I was jealous. Not overtly so. Also, not because of her concentration. But that was always a sore spot when I could not keep my own concentration for more than ten minutes. I was more jealous that somehow, with everything we'd gone through, Jazz still had the air of innocence and wonder about her. Even with all the knowledge stashed away in her head, there was just something about her very body-language that screamed little girl.

The innate side of me wanted to protect her. Even Phantom felt the need, no matter that she shared little to no resemblance with me, to protect her.

"Why?" I heard myself asking, an almost out of body experience. I panicked, thinking I had lost control, but Phantom had taken control momentarily to ask.

He was always fascinated by Jazz, one of the few humans I myself had any positive connections with, and whenever he received the change or I allowed him - he loved to interact with her. Perhaps it was because they were both old souls.

Jazz, ever thinking she is the smartest person to ever live on the face of the earth look at me and said, "There are lots of answers to that."

"But what's your answer?" Once again, Phantom in control.

I stayed back, controlling the body but allowing Phantom my vocal chords.

"Perhaps, for them, the world spins to a different tune than for you or I." Jazz said, assuming we were talking about our parents. "There is more than one way to skin a cat, after all. Even if I personally don't find skinning a cat any kind of fun."

I forced the body to smile, but Phantom contemplated everything.

To be honest, we probably didn't have an angle. It was a simple question. One with many answers as Jazz had showed us.

"And that gives them the right?" Phantom pushed.

"No," Jazz said, watching me carefully for a second before turning back towards the garden. "But people have done a lot more for less."

I could feel a history lesson coming on, but Jazz kept it in. The peace and quiet of the garden once again uninterrupted.

"What are you planning, Danni?" Jazz said, pulling me out of my thoughts of the birds and the trees and how their silent song was quite beautiful.

"Why do you think I have something planned?" I asked, tearing my eyes away from a flock of birds that had taken roost in a tree almost a quarter of a mile away. I could not hear them from this distance, but my ghostly-powers allowed my eyesight to see what I could never have before. It was amazing, but half the time I could only ever see it as useful.

I wonder if Jazz would see it differently than me.

"Well, you're never this quiet, for one," Jazz said, meaning for it to sound teasing. Not knowing she had hit the nail on the head. "And that was the first time you've ever blown up at our parents when you had been in such a good mood only minutes before."

Jazz was very observant, but she would never be able to catch me. This I knew.

"I was happy." I said. "Until they opened their mouths."

Jazz gave me a look.

"I'm not dumb."

"Neither am I." I found myself retorting, looking towards her as she caught my eye. I felt guilt because it was easy to tell she sniffed out my lie. The one thing not-so-innocent about her. "I'm not planning anything Jazz. There's just _only _so much I can take before I have to scream."

She deflated from whatever she had been about to say.

"I get it."

_:No. You really don't.:_I said to myself. _:And for your sake, I really hope you never do.:_

Because Jazz's reality was different than my own.

When a tree falls in the forest, Jazz is still wondering if it made a sound - while I'm wondering just how long it's going to take for that large tree to fall and crush everything around it. When Jazz writes something down, it's poetry in motion. Every scientific thought in her brain is brilliance. There is magic in her walk and in her talk. People don't listen to her because they **have to** but because they **want to**.

Perhaps even need to.

I am not like her.

When I write, it's plans. It how to stay in the dark long enough that nobody finds my traces until years down the road. Calculations based on how long I could survive in New York, stealing to survive. How long I could wear a pair of jeans before they needed to be washed. What Phantom and I need to learn to survive in a time he doesn't understand and a time that simply will not understand us. Which ghosts will follow and which ones won't. How long does a swarm take to form?

And when should we be expect an attack when we invade someone else's territory?

My walk should be lonely. It should be dark. There is more magic behind my entire existence then there is when Jazz speaks, but my being is not a song to be sung. There will not be any good words from humans for me. To me.

Phantom was the only thing keeping me from going off the deep end, if I was honest with myself. The only thing that hadn't driven me crazier than I was already want to be.

"I'm cold, Jazz." I said, giving her a remembered smile that would make her give me one back. I had been thinking too long without interruption from Phantom. Mostly because he found it to be true.

"Let's go inside. I heard the library has a fireplace."

That was all it took for Jazz to give me the brightest doe-eyed smile and yammer on about just how great the fire was in the library and how wonderful I would find it. I got up on my feet and followed her as she ran circles around me. Spitting up knowledge in time to the beat of a drum inside her head that I would never understand the rhythm to.

As I watched her, I knew it wasn't my lot in life to understand it.

No. My life was set for a darker path.

_:Revenge is best served cold, after all._: I said as the cool wind blew, telling me we might be expecting snow soon.

_:And so the games begin.: _Phantom said, as he trudged inside with budding snowflakes to our back.

Thinking of the meeting with Vlad in a few hours, I said, _:Let the games begin.:_


End file.
